I'm Not Gone
by Stina Whatever
Summary: Benjamin is confused. He's randomly putting things on fire and just discovered that he's a witch, with a big array of powers. Not to mention all the people that's gonna die...
1. The Beginning

**AN: Here comes my new story, which i hope will be great, and it is edited by the Steel Magnolia.**

**Also, if you know any song that goes with this chapter, do tell. The only criteria is that it's gotta be loud and punkish.**

Oh, god, I don't think that I've ever felt this bad before. My head is pounding and stomach churning.

What's my name again? Doesn't matter, _I just need more sleep…_

The raw pounding in my head increases.

…_and an aspirin._

The sun is starting to leak through the windows. I'd always hated the glaring sunlight, especially on a morning with a hangover and a freakish—

Ah.

Could that've really happened?

Just to make sure I'd only been dreaming, I sit up and check my chest for burn marks. There aren't any.

I lay down again and curl into a ball.

Even the though the sun is shining, I'm glad at least that it's autumn and not spring. I hate spring, and the weeks before spring. Just before winter melts away my mood slips and my grades drop.

I pressed my head deeper into my pillow, craving more sleep. But that wasn't possible at this point. Sounds traveled to my room from all around me and I could practically feel the whole house stirring, and it was all going directly to my pounding head.

I don't even have to check to know that mom, dad, the siblings, and the old people were eating breakfast in the next room. I craned my neck to check the clock.

"Jesus, that's early," I breathed and double-checked just to make sure. It was only eight a.m.

_I need an aspirin._

I sat up, throwing the blankets off myself, and saw that I'd slept in my clothes again. Amazing. Grandma was going to have my head on a platter. And then there's that puddle of vomit somewhere in my room too. I couldn't remember exactly where it was, but I could smell it. It stank, like old socks.

I went to the bathroom and grabbed the aspirin bottle off the shelf in the cabinet and noticed that it was almost empty. Just shows how many headaches I've had in the past two weeks. I can't go to sleep without having a nightmare or wake up without getting a headache, and I've only gotten drunk once. And that was yesterday.

_Congratulations Ben, you've got a constant migraine and it's not because of teenage drinking. _Stupid.

I felt dizzy and suddenly wanted to go back to my room. I closed my eyes...

...and found myself standing in the center of my room.

Weird. _Like that dream_...and every other dream I've had since my recent birthday, not including the nightmares.

I squeezed my eyes shut. My head hurt to much to think about that now.

I could already feel the aspirin soaking in, so I simply fell back onto my bed and went back to sleep.

_A blonde woman stood there, in a cave with several cave openings to other caves, looking around, and shouting :"Tempus? Are you there?" _

"_Tempus? You confuse me with Tempus?" A steel-like voice echoed.__She didn't seem to see from where it came, and then she shriveled away as if time had moved forward._

_I wanted to die. It was time to die._

_I could see a beam of blue fire coming towards me, feeling it scorch me and then the heat intensified, as if I was about to be blown to bits. I screamed._

_Beaten by a fetus, was my last thought._

Someone roughly shook me awake. I opened my eyes, and saw Mom standing there.

"'kay?" she asked in her usual too-short way with her obnoxious voice.

_My poor ears._

"Yeah. Fine. Why wouldn't I be?" She looked at me as if I was some sort of bug. A very strange bug, for that matter.

"Blue bags," she stated, and once again I wondered why in the fucking hell Dad married her. So, you sorta liked her for a while, but seriously?

"Sure," I muttered, picturing her carrying a couple of blue bags in her hands.

"No," she corrected me as she shook her head.

"_No bags?_ What are you talking about? Murder? Rape? Suicide?"

She chuckled. "Eyes."

"Oh." I suddenly felt stupid as I turned to face the wall. "Got it, Mom. I need to sleep."

"Stench?" Mom asked.

I hadn't answered before Dad walked in. "God, Ben, what have you been doing in here? Are you hiding a corpse in your wardrobe?" Unlike Mom, Dad talks. A lot.

"I don't know, but please get the hell out of here," I told them irritably, thinking about how much fun it would be to watch them accidentally step in the vomit.

"Clean up the need to be cleaned, right Ben?" Dad asked.

I wondered if that was supposed to be a joke. And it also was really easy to misunderstand. I didn't have a need to be clean, I just needed to sleep. The frustrating part was that I had no idea how I was supposed to do that.

I have a friend named Gina, who's of the very strict belief that when you wake up, you're up, and when you get so tired that you fall asleep standing, it's time to sleep. She's lost a lot of sleep and missed just as much school for that reason.

It felt like I'd laid there for an eternity before I got up, intending to finally leave my room, only to find myself face to face with a man in a suit, with electrifying blue eyes like my own, and brown hair.

"How'd…you get in here?"

My stomach turned suddenly, and the urge to vomit became irresistible. And so I decided to let it go, and the bile flew in his general direction.

I couldn't help but inwardly laugh at the irony.

Instead of hitting him, the vomit fell straight through him and splattered all over the cover of a book on the floor. I look at the book and saw it was Arithmancy.

When I recovered I turned to glare at him, and my eyes grew hot with rage. I tried to blink, and it burned as if someone had poured hot lava over my eyes.

"You have absolutely no control of your powers, do you?" He watched me interestedly as a big burn hole in his stomach glowed, and disappeared. WTF?

"Powers?"

Grandma decided to interrupt the moment, by poking her head in through the door. "Get to cleaning, it stinks."

Good ole grandma, never beating around the bush.

And as soon as she'd poked her head in she poked it out and I heard her trailing down the hallway.

"Why didn't she see you?"

He gave me a perplexed look. "You saw me all the time?"

"Yeah, sure. You were right there," I replied. "What did you mean by powers? And you owe me a book by the way." I began to understand why John cares so much about books, and not girls—I still think he's gay though.

"Come up with a spell," he drawled. "You're a witch."

"I don't speak Latin," I protested.

"A spell is like a poem," he explained. "Just say it out loud."

"Okay, eh…_let this disgusting mess…_"I started lamely. "…_go poof as I wish…to have my book cleaned…_"

Surprisingly enough, it worked. The vomit disappeared immediately, and the book looked sparkly and vomit-free. I picked it up to see if it was still intact and saw that the spell had cleaned the text as well.

"…_and let the text be there._"

Even better.

"I'm surprised that that worked," the guy told me.

I looked up at him. "What did you say your name was again?"

"I didn't, though it's Cole Turner."

"I'm Ben. I'm a witch. I just found out."

Cole Turner smiled, as if he actually thought that my joke was funny; but it wasn't a friendly, it was cynical. I tried at least. "Do you know what powers you've got?"

"Power_s_? Why can't I just have one? Does this come with a responsibility?"

"You're powerful, therefore you have more than one power. And yes, it comes with a responsibility, and the only thing you actually have to do is to stop drinking. You're what, fifteen?"

"Close enough," I said quickly. "You know which power I've got?"

"I have a guess on what powers you've got. Telekinesis, the ability to move things with your mind. And possibly pyrokinesis."

"In which category does seeing people die fall into?"

"Premonitions. The ability to see the future."

My mouth grew dry.

"But...I don't want to see the future," I whined, sounding like a baby. "I don't wanna see nothing."

"You could also be seeing the past, though you usually start with seeing the future."

"That's just great, I'm a freak in the world of the freaks! Go. to. Hell."

Cole erupted in flames, which seemed to shock him; he disappeared without leaving behind a spot of ash.

_Great, _I thought. _No more messes to clean with crappy spells_.

I went to the bathroom to get another aspirin and found Jimmie there, peeing in the toilet. Joanie was watching fascinatedly from the doorway, looking a if she might touch him at any moment.

"Joanie," I told her. "If you really want to suck him off, I doubt that he'd mind."

Grandpa came in then, his eyebrows was singed off as usual. He'd probably tried to fix the dishwasher again.

"You use that language in front of ladies?" he asked.

"Course I do, what other sort of language would I be using?"

Raised his eyebrows and turned back in the opposite direction, grunting some incoherent remark to himself.

I stepped around Joanie, grabbed the aspirin bottle, then sauntered out and headed to the kitchen. When I reached my destination I took one of the pills out of the bottle and swallowed it down with Fanta, pocketing the bottle as I did so.

Some basics about my house: it's two stories, the first consisting of the kitchen, living room and toilet. The the second story include a tiny cupboard we call 'comfy, homey room' that's my room, then there's my parent's room, my grandparent's room, and then there's Jimmie and Joanie's room. Jennifer, the newborn baby banshee, lived with Mom and Dad.

Jimmie, Joanie, Jennifer, and…_Ben_.

If you wonder why my name doesn't start with a J, it's because I'm adopted.

I went back to my room and put Disturbed on my stereo, cranking the volume up as high as it could possibly go—just how I like it. It wasn't long before an angry mob—also called 'family'—invaded my room.

Grandpa threw a shoe at the stereo. Mom just pressed her hands to her ears and screeched. Grandma and Dad tried to voice their protests over one another, and Jimmie did the sensible thing of pressing every single button until the music stopped.

I'll never understand why they don't like Disturbed; their rhythm is much more enchanting than that blues they like.

At that moment Cole appeared in the corner of my room in sparkles. The others gave no indication of seeing him. His invisibility to everyone but me was probably another fucking thing that I knew absolutely nothing about.

"Okay, first off, this is the tiniest room in the whole house, you can't just barge in. If you want something, you ask, or better yet…_knock_!" As my anger rose my desk was randomly put on fire.

The siblings started crying as Mom and Dad cleared out of the room; I guess they were tired of the small fires that I pretty much always caused.

"Holy hell!" Grandpa exclaimed.

Grandma heaved a sigh and used the comforter off my bed to put the fire out. Then she looked at me and narrowed her eyes and looked me up and down suspiciously. "Did you sleep in those clothes, boy?"

I gulped.

"Not at all, grandma," I answered.

"Then where're your pajamas?"

"I changed."

"So why are your clothes rumpled?"

"Because they were made that way."

"Hmph," she grunted. She gathered the comforter in her arms and made her exit with Grandpa. "Punk," she muttered and I had a good mind to yell at her and say that Disturbed wasn't punk. She thinks she knows everything.

"You slept in your clothes?" Joanie asked, filled with awe for her amazing big brother.

"What do you think?" I whispered. Her smile was a few miles long, and then she got the great idea of burning up Jennifer's tiny little jumpsuits.

Yeah, I'm not the only kleptomaniac in the family.

When they had left, I closed the door, and tried to remember the poem I had used earlier to get rid of the vomit.

"_Banish this mess…that I caused…return it to…it's former glory…_"

Not the exact same poem, but this one also worked.

Cole inspected his fingernails. "You could write it down, so that you won't have to come up with a new spell every time something like this happens."

I nodded, and wrote it down on the back of a paper from school, and then put it up on the wall.

I heard the bed creak behind me, so I sat down on the chair and looked back at Cole who was now sitting on the side of my bed.

"What does it mean? Being a fuckin' witch? I don't even want—" I cut myself short and started pushing the buttons on my stereo, just like Jimmie. When Disturbed started blaring again, I lowered the volume a bit.

"It's understandable that you don't want to be a witch," Cole said. "But I can't take your powers away. The basics o—"

"Then I won't be a witch anymore, it's as easy as that," I snapped. "You want me to send you away again?"

"Ben, there's two sides in the magical world. The evil side, the demons, and the good side, the leprechauns, most of the witches, gnomes, whitelighters and more. At the rate you're going, you're going to end up on the evil side. The side that kills."

"But I wouldn't do something like that," I protested.

"I thought so too—when I was _five_. Ten years later I killed my mother. The good side's biggest con is their hypocrisy."

"And you're evil, which means that I'm evil, right?"

"I'm neutral, on neither side."

"Great for you."

From the kitchen downstairs I heard Grandma call out: "Lunch!"

Yeah, I have great hearing too.

"We'll talk more later," Cole told me.

As it turned out lunch was Grandma's concoction, looking like the usual clay-soup one might be forced to eat as a child in daycare. You get used to the daycare food after a while, because when you're old enough Grandpa gives you some whiskey to make the food taste like something other than burnt socks.

After lunch there was dessert, just a fancy way of saying: 'raid the kitchen for junk food.'

So, I went back to my room munching on some sort of chocolate, though my dentist says that if I eat more candy I won't have any teeth left.

Who gives a fuckin' fuck?

When I opened my door, I already knew that Cole would be laying on my bed reading the book on Arithmancy.

"Is it a power to know where everybody is?"

"Yes, it is. Do you believe in this stuff?"

"No, but I like math," I told him.

He gave me a funny look. "Don't use those spells all the time. There's this thing called _personal gain, _which has an ugly way of back-firing. Do you have a paper?"

"I'll add it up to you. Name?"

"Phoebe Halliwell." I couldn't find a clean paper, so I added up on the desk. "She's a one. Your wife? Or maybe lawyers only have slaves?" As you might notice, I don't like lawyers, solicitors or barristers.

"Ex."

"Then we add that up with yours, and that's six. Check number six and see what it says."

"It says: 'Six represents harmony, friendship, and family life. Sixes are loyal, reliable, and loving. They adapt easily. They do well in teaching and the arts, but are often unsuccessful in business. They are sometimes prone to gossip and complacency.' Heart number, vowels."

"That's four and one, I think. Together it's five."

"Very funny. It says that we're instable."

"Together, yeah. It just wasn't meant to be. Social number is..." I quickly add it up. "Six and four. I've always thought that fours' are supposed to be soldiers."

"I'll take that as a compliment." he closed the book and sat up again. "You are a witch, which comes with a responsibility. You have post cognition, pyrokinesis and sensing. Expect demons to come running whenever. I'll show up when you need me, and I've left you a book. It was written by a demon, and is quite racistical, but it has always helped me out." He disappeared in glitter and I was left by myself.

I glanced down at the book and saw that it was not a book, it was a damned bible.

I had to get out of here. Somewhere, but I—

This, was all a joke. It couldn't be true. Just, hangover hallucinations.

Everything has got a logical explanation.

I'm no Harry Potter, how could I have ever thought that?

**AN: What do you think? Please review**


	2. The Ambush

**AN: thanks to halliwellmb for your anonymous review, and yeah, I'm an hp fan, though I haven't read the books in a while.**

I woke to Mom banging on the fuckin' door as usual on schooldays.

I dragged myself out of bed, convinced that it had all been a dream when I saw the big tome next to me.

Oh, god. Couldn't it have just been a dream? Though it could still be a dream. I hid my face in my pillow. Waking up and wishing that my reality was a dream was developing itself into pattern.

I peered at the pillow out of the corner of my eye. I could just drop the book in the garbage can. Or burn it up. Or _both_.

I suddenly smiled into the pillow at my genius.

All I had to do was—oh, wait. Silly me. I'm not a witch. I was gonna use a match. The nice, _normal_ way of putting things on fire. I was positive that my thoughts about setting things on fire wasn't normal, but I cast those aside.

I got up and walked past the trash can, then strode to the bathroom for a quick shower. When I was finished I went down to the kitchen to get some food.

Damn was I grateful you bought bread and butter in the store, together with tea.

"I'm making scrambled eggs. How much do you want?" grandma asked. I looked into the frying pan and realized that she must have been referring to the burnt mess inside.

"No thanks, I'm fine," I said and poured myself a cup of tea.

"Can't you stop drinking tea? You'll get yellow teeth," grandma said. She was an opinionated woman, and had an upfront way of expressing herself.

"Good thing I don't care then," I said.

"Naughty," mom said. Nails against the blackboard—Nearly Headless Nick would've called that music. Grandpa winked at me.

"Don't bother 'bout the old hag," he told me. Talking shit about his wife was his way of trying to fix things, which usually just got worse after his tinkering.

I took a sip of tea; the taste of blackcurrant melted across my tongue pleasantly.

"Prepared for school Benji?" Dad asked. "You've got English, right-o? Are you doing grammar? I remember being quite good at it."

"Yeah, English. We're doing a romance novel," I explained. "Twilight."

"I see that you've learned new, strong and intellectual words, son," he replied.

I wasn't about to tell him that I had learned them since John got me hooked on Discworld-novels, the greatest invention since punk. But thinking about it, they were probably invented around the same time.

"What does it mean?" Jimmy asked.

"Yeah," Joanie piped in.

"Twiligh-"

"Dad, that's the name of the book. Sorry," I told him. Surely he was alive during the craziness of it all? Or his memory is as useful as his non-existent brain.

"That's still good, Ben," Grandpa said.

"I know," I smirked. I drank up my tea and picked up a blueberry muffin.

I then walked up the stairs to my room, threw in some school stuff in my bag and went to school, after having the ritual hug with mom.

At school I met with Simon, my best friend, and John, the gay bookworm. Gina, another friend, was at home sleeping.

In English, Mrs. Frodds was as usual saying that Twilight was a wonderful book, along with Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice. I hadn't read any of those, but of course I'd heard of them.

Then, another class later, we had lunch in the cafeteria.

"How was your Sunday, Ben? Mine was a fucking hell," Simon said as he sat down next to me.

"Different, and creepy," I answered, thinking about Cole. The man could've been a pedophile, or…ah, my imagination.

"My Sunday was great," John piped up. "I worked in th-"

"That's great John. You worked. Did you get paid?"

"Of course not. I was helping out," he replied, looking completely geeky in his nerdy clothes, a turtleneck and khaki pants, not jeans.

"Met anyone?" Simon intoned. "Older guys have experience, so I've heard."

"For the last time, I'm not gay!" John exclaimed, and attracted a few glances.

"So you're not happy?" Simon asked.

"Har har, that's the oldest joke in the book, Simon. Keep your mouth shut, if you please." My bets were on John and Simon, the irony of them becoming a couple.

"John, you don't _ask_ someone to shut the fuck up, you _tell_ them to do it," I said.

Simon sniggered.

"Just because I don't swear," John said haughtily.

"Snob," Simon said. John stuck out his tongue in retaliation.

In short lunch was nice, and normal, as was the rest of the day. Nothing not normal 'bout it. Urghh, I was beginning th think like the damned Dursleys.

After school, John, Simon and I walked out of the doors of the school together. When we saw the school bus turn the corner, John gave Simon and I a hurried goodbye and ran like hell in the direction the bus had gone. Trust the quiet ones to spaz out.

Simon turned toward me. "Yours or mine?"

"We'll go to your place," I said. "Crazy grandparents and their fuckin' belief they understand today's youth. I think it makes 'em feel younger."

Simon laughed.

We walked the short distance to Simon's, talking about school, movies, music, etc.

Simon lives in an apartment with his dad, the sort of guy who just didn't grow up. He was still the same as he was when he was fifteen, still the same Twisted Sister fan. Pft, Twisted Sisters…you could spend a lot of time mangling their lyrics, which pissed him off and made you laugh, and the more you laughed the more pissed he got.

Simon opened the door to the apartment building eighth his key, and we climbed the two flights of stairs up. Through the door of the apartment you could hear _We're Not Gonna Take It_.

Simon opened that door with another key. We walked in, dropped our bags onto the floor together with our jackets. It gets cold here, not like California or Florida, this is Seattle, where it really just rains.

To the right was Simon's room, to the left of it was his dad's. Straight forward was the living room, and to the left was the kitchen. Behind the kitchen was the apartment's only bathroom.

"Hiya, dudes," Simon's dad, Gabe said. He's as big as a fuckin' walrus on a fat-only diet, and had a pronounced balding spot around the top of his head. There was always the heavy scent of cigarettes that surrounded him too.

"Dad, we're here to have fun, not to talk to you, so fuck off," Simon said. His dad's face fell slightly, and his shoulders sagged.

We went into his room, which is twice as big as mine and could still be called small. Simon an I had a fun time, watching porno and eating chips.

At six p.m., Gabe decided that I should go home, after having received a phone-call telling me to go home.

I walked the streets slowly, deep in thought. I was looking down, stepping on every crack in the cement when something burning hit my stomach. I groaned and fell backward onto my ass. After a moment of disorientation, I looked up and saw a man walking toward me. He was dressed in black with slithering tribal tattoos , and there were two women on either side of him.

One of the girls opened her mouth and spit out something that looked like needles. I instinctively raised my arms and fell onto my back at the same time. When I managed to raise myself up from the ground, the demons, I guess they were, had frozen, but looked ready to snap out of it.

"Die?" I asked experimentally, testing my magic ability. Nothing happened. I took a deep breath and stood up, wincing at the throbbing pain in my gut.

Sweet, fuckin' Jesus I shouldn't be standing up.

Then the demon man un-froze and threw a ball of fire at me. I side-stepped and mimicked the movement that he had made, which produced a smaller version of his ball of fire. Fortunately for me, the demon didn't have the sense to dodge.

Then the women started unfreezing and I focused on a spot behind them, only to see if I could do the same thing as the thing that I had done to Cole yesterday.

And it worked a mere second before the needles would've hit me. I was starting to get pissed, and threw another fire ball at the demon to my right.

As the other one turned around, I hit her and she flew a few meters. I quickly walked closer to her and threw another ball of fire.

"Fuckin' demon cunts," I muttered. Just had to ruin it all.

"So you do believe in demons then?" Cole drawled from behind me.

I jumped, a few meters up, literally. Fuckin' neat. Another power to add to the never-ending list.

"Levitation," Cole supplied.

"Amazing," I huffed as I floated back down to ground-level.

Cole peered at the subdued demons behind me and quirked an amused eyebrow.

"Did…" I licked my lips. "Did you hire those demons to go after me?"

"Of course not." Something about the way his face stiffened slightly told me otherwise. He paced around me, still surveying the demons from a distance. "You seemed to have handled these just fine," he said.

For a moment I stood there, looking at him looking at the demons, then I bent over slowly and retrieved my bag. I turned around calmly and walked backward until I was sure he wasn't going to do anything, then I turned and began to sprint down the street.

I didn't know why he'd done it, but I wasn't going to stick around to find out.

As I ran, I could only visualize the tome in my room…the tome that I had planned to burn earlier.

That tome was gonna help me kill Cole.

**AN: review and say what you thought of the chapter**


	3. The Deserter

**AN: here comes chapter 3, hope you like**

"Let's do my house today," Simon said outside school the next day. The sky was gray, the air humid, and heavy droplets of rain came down around us.

"I've got some stuff to do," I replied.

"What? But this is, like, a tradition!"

"Ben…" Gina said gravely—now with us after skipping yesterday. She wouldn't even be here now if she hadn't escaped her after-school detention by claiming to be an insomniac. "…Simon's right." John snorted, and Gina glared at him. "Well, it _is_ tradition, just like my sleeping all the time unless I've had caffeine. Besides, Ben, what are you doing that Simon can't join you?"

"I've got some stuff to do, and I want to do it alone," I repeated. "I want to do it myself."

"By your…" Gina raised her eyebrows and gave a slight laugh. "Sounds like you found your big boy pants while I was gone."

"Can't you stop fighting?" John suggested. The bus he usually got on wasn't coming for another five minutes so he wasn't going to end up running like hell today.

"Nooo, because this is the biggest fucking thing of this year!" Simon yelled.

John opened his mouth to say something again. I took the opportunity to run away from them knowing that they were gonna start a fuckin' fight. I heard their protests behind me, but none of them went after me. I kept running, and didn't stop until I came across a secluded park.

I tried to sense my friends, as I seemed to sense everything else.

They were still in the school yard, except for John, who was now…ah, getting on the bus. I smiled.

Now I just had to sense for Cole.

I had started leafing through the tome this morning before school; yesterday I'd been too tired to do anything.

It was all crazy. My life was just as weird as it could possibly be.

The grass was wet, so instead of sitting down like I wanted to, I merely leaned against the tree and concentrated. I sensed for Cole, and felt him in the rich, leachy side of town. I concentrated and transported myself there.

When I felt solid ground beneath my feet, I opened my eyes to see flames, dancing in front of my eyes. It made me stagger and fall on my ass, yet again.

"Fuck," I muttered. I was in some sort of penthouse, an expensive one and Cole was working on the computer, looking at me curiously out the corner of his eye as he his fingers popped along the keyboard.

I imagined how much fun it would be to put him on fire just to see what he'd do.

"Don't you have school?" he asked. I got up, my stomach still hurting like a bitch from yesterday.

"No," I retorted. "It's over."

"Then what are you _doing_ here?"

There was annoyance in his tone, like he only wondered what I was doing here because he didn't want me here.

"I want you to tell me stuff about this whole magic thing instead of giving me the whole fuckin' bible about demons, gossip, how to get someone in bed, how to kill witches…etc."

"So you've looked through it then. Have you got it with you?"

"Yeah, I do," I replied.

He nodded. "What do you want to know?"

"How did I get here? I know how I did, but how could I? And how did I kill those demons last night? Magic doesn't exist."

"Yes, it does, you flamed here, though I saw you shimmering yesterday. You killed those demons last night by 'freezing' them, something you do instinctively when you're afraid." His voice took on a snobbish tone. "You also threw fireballs, something that you probably need to learn the theory behind considering they were so puny."

I still stood there, so he brought a couch from thin air and I sat down.

"Flaming and shimmering are means of transportation, right?" I asked.

"For demons, yes," he replied. "It's in the book somewhere, all you have to do is to _read_."

He smirked a bit, as if there was some sort of inside joke replaying in his head that I wasn't aware of. How fuckin' irritating can you be? One of the lamps on his desk blew up. Cole just sighed; this was so fuckin' normal that nobody raised an eyebrow.

I took the tome from my bag and started leafing through it, wishing it had some sort of index in the back.

I finally found a page that said 'Shimmering' with one of those weird letters that are nearly impossible to decipher.

_Shimmering is a mean of transportation (_common_) among demons._

_To be able to shimmer you concentrate on the spot where you want to go and if you're powerful you will be able to do it, if you're scum, you will not be able to do it._

_(_Think of it like a automobile coming at you and you have to get away, or that the Source of all Evil will assassinate you [or give you an athame and wait until you understand what he wants you to do].)

**To be able to shimmer is to be able to do anything.**

There were also some pictures of what could potentially go wrong, like one's body becoming completely transparent.

"This thing sucks."

"It's a grimoire, and the Shimmering text is a bit lacking," he said. I frowned bitterly and his laptop burst into flames.

Cole seemed surprised, but annoyed more than anything. He waved his hand and the fire stopped, then disappeared. His laptop was completely unblemished, as if it hadn't been touched.

"You suck," I tell him. "I need help with this, not some rascist text about shimmering. If you knew the text was gonna be vague, why'd you make me find it in the first place? Just explain to me how to do Shimmering."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Fine. How did you do it yesterday?"

"I concentrated on a spot and went there," I said.

He nodded. "It's easier when you're pumped full of adrenaline. How did you do it today?"

"I…ah, concentrated," I said. "Again."

"Then you know how to do it. You have done it. Why do you need help?"

"Eh..."

He smirked.

"But what's the difference between shimmering and flaming?"

"It looks different. And you should know that while shimmering is common, flaming isn't. I recommend you concentrate more on fire balls and less on transportation, because there's not much in that grimoire about transportation that you haven't already understood."

I rolled my eyes. "But I want to learn the theory behind it."

"It's simple. Concentrate."

"Well, that's what you say," I mumble.

"As did you."

"_Fire balls_," I said, firmly changing the subject. I leafed through the book until I finally found a page with 'Fire Balls' written across the top.

_Usually thrown around by powerful demons, such as our clan._

_Fire balls come in different shapes and strength._

_The most powerful fire balls are thrown by the Source of all Evil._

_To create a fireball you direct your 'emotions' into your hand, like creating a gateway for your 'emotions'._

"So I just 'direct' my emotions into my hand?" I asked Cole.

"_Obviously_," he drawled.

I held out my hand in front of me, palm up as I intentionally faced Cole. I 'directed' my 'emotions' into it. It worked, but not in the intended way; Cole reacted quickly, stopping the line of fire before it hit him, and that was the issue.

What continued spouting out of my hand was not a ball of fire, it was a line. And the fire was blue. It looked almost like a large blue laser had shot out of my hand, something that I knew wasn't supposed to happen.

"Can you stop that, Ben?" Cole asked annoyed.

"You always stop the stupid fire before it can do any fuckin' damage!"

Yet another lamp exploded.

Cole took a deep breath...then a few more.

"You need to learn to control your temper, otherwise you might blow up your friends, or even your house."

"Of course I wouldn't do that. You're stupid. How do I do this?" I asked, wanting to get on with the magic.

"But it could happen, fool boy, even if you don't mean for it to. Don't just think about fire, Ben, think about the shape you want it to take." He gestured toward the wall in front of him. "Aim for the wall."

I did the same motion that I would do if I'd throw a ball in gym.

It didn't work.

"More like back and forth," Cole suggested.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He stood up, his right arm bent at the elbow as he moved his fist backwards then forward quickly and a ball of energy (energy ball?) shot forward and hit the wall.

Smoke now wafted up from a perfectly round burn mark in the wood.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else to practice," I suggested. "I might burn the building down."

"I have to work. You can go somewhere else by yourself." His lips curled into an amused smirk. "Ah, and try not to kill anyone when you do."

"Not funny," I muttered, putting the tome back in my bag. I didn't look back at Cole as I began to concentrate on shimmering back to my room.

As soon as I arrived I lost my footing and fell backwards onto my bed. The tome in my bag pressed into my back, hurting it slightly.

"Fuck," I said. I realized was going to have to enter through the door, instead of just shimmering into my room and falling onto the bed.

This is so fuckin' stupid!

An aching sensation comes into my head and I feel a migraine creeping up on me. I thought those had disappeared.

I dropped the bag onto the floor with a thump then shimmered outside. I walked through the front door and right upstairs to my room. I'm not noticed because Grandpa caused some explosion or something in the kitchen. Or it might have been caused by me. Who knows?

I take an aspirin and swallow it with a glass of water.

_A girl of six, seven, eight huddles in a corner as a woman who look like her falls, a knife stuck in her gut._

The image in my head had hit me so hard and unexpectedly that I nearly fell over.

What the fuck?

Was that a premonition?

…I don't want to have premonitions.

I got on the internet, intent on finding out the side-effects to eating too many aspirins. The site I found told me that the consumption of too many pain relievers can cause stomachaches, nausea, heartburn or even vomiting. Dizziness and ringing in the ears are less common symptoms. Of everything that came up, I found nothing about hallucinations.


	4. The Voice

**AN: sorry about the late update, but i've got several chapters waiting, that i'll update with intervals, quite short ones.**

**Also, this is important, my beta is completely MIA, so i've edited the chapter myself, and i'm not that good at it, though i hope that you will like it anyway.**

**And, for those that read the bitchy witch..., i will be replacing that story with a harry potter one, So Different, So Alike.**

A week later, in gym.

The substitute teacher was a fuckin' joke.

First, she says that we're playing dodge ball, girls versus boys. Then she says, to be fair, that us boys would have to shoot in order.

Though that hadn't mattered, in the beginning, until the girls stopped throwing (they're good at ducking, and that really shows of their breasts) and we only had one fuckin' ball left, and John was gonna throw.

"You better hit, ass!" some sixth-grader yelled. Yeah, we have gym together with the sixth-graders. And they're all stupid.

You could see John's forehead shine with sweat from all the 'peer-pressure'. A big fuckin' lie if you ask me. Peer-pressure doesn't exist, you can do what the fuck you want, no peers pressing you.

Well, John threw the ball, and missed. The substitute teacher whistled.

"Girls win! You and you," she said, pointing at me and a sixthgrader named Aaron Jones. "Stay behind!" What the fuck?

Numerous complaints were voiced, the best was Simon's:

"What sort of fuckin' racist are you, bitch?"

She didn't react, at all. No detention, nothing.

Then, as the rest of the students left, I looked more closely at the substitute's face.

_A monster, no demon, ripped the head from coach Smith._

"Coach Smith's dead?" I asked.

"Duck!" Aaron Jones called, and pushed me to the gound as an energyball whizzed past our heads. I looked up just in time to see the demon who had killed Coach Smith shimmer in.

The demon's tongue shot out of his mouth like a frog's would. I shimmered away to behind the substitue teacher and tried to hit her with an fireball, but she ducked.

She hit me on the nose, and fuckin' fuck ow! I hit back, but she dodged again. I shot a blue line of fire at her, and she went up in flames.

_The boy shot a line of blue fire at me. It felt as if I was melting._

I'm never gonna do that ever the fuck again.

All the while, Aaron and the other demon were fighting, i.e. Aaron shimmered all over the place and the demon followed.

_The demon's tongue strangled Aaron._

I had to fuckin' do something.

"Here!" I yelled, and while Aaron shimmered away from me, the demon shimmered to me. When his tongue flew out of his mouth I ducked, put my hands on his stomach and directed my 'emotions' into them, causing him to burst into flames.

Aaron shimmerd in front of me.

"Are you okay? I'm sorry, I really am. Are you a witch?" he asked.

"I'm fine, what about you?" I asked.

"I'm fine, too."

"Amazing," I said and we walk to the lookers.

Aaron tried to make a conversation, but I just brushed him off.

Fuck.

"What did she want?" Simon asked when Aaron and I stepped into the dressing room.

"Nothing much, just wanted to kill us. This school should start doing their fuckin' job," I said.

"It wasn't that bad, was it? Aaron?"

"The school do need to start doing their job," he murmured. I took of my pants and shirt.

"What's that?" John asked, pointing at my stomach where the fireballmark still was. It wasn't as bad as it first was, but fuck.

How could I have forgotten it?

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Well, you know me John," I said, pulling of my shoes and socks, taking a towel and went to take a shower.

"It looks sort of bad," Aaron say as he joins me in the shower.

"Sort of? It looks like you dropped a pan or something on your fuckin stomach!" Simon exclaims.

"Maybe I did Simon."

"You did?"

"You were the one who asked."

"Stop fighting, will you?" John said. "Have you gotten anyone to look at it Ben?"

"What do you think?" I ask as I step out of the shower and start to dry myself with my towel.

"I was just asking, you have acted strange lately."

"Yeah, and that's the exact fuckin' reason to not care about myself lately, isn't it?"

"You could buy pain-killers at the drugstore today. Gina's going to dye her hair," John informed me.

"But if you're gonna bail on us again, Ben, that's not fuckin' okay," Simon said.

I nodded.

When I was finished, we all met up outside school.

"We're going to the drucgstore," Gina announce.

"I know."

"You do?" Gina asks. I nodded.

And off we went, the little merry band.

"What are you gonna buy?" Simon ask Gina.

"I'm gonna buy some dye for my hair, anyone else need anything?"

"Pain killers," I say.

"Because you dropped a pan on your stomach?" Simon asks.

"What the fuck?" Gina asks.

"I never said I fuckin' did that! No, it's for my stupid migraines. Little motherfuckers they are."

"Ah, those hurt," Gina says.

"Have you ever gotten one?" I ask.

"Eh, no."

"I used to get headaches all the time before I got glasses. Are you having a hard time seeing?" John, the geeky nerd, asked.

"No, John. 's no big deal."

"Stop talking to him and talk to me instead. Do you think that I should really get pink, or should I go with green instead?" gina asks.

"Maybe you shouldn't dye your hair?" John suggested.

"Eh, no. I'll dye my hair, I want to shock people, okay? Ooh, maybe orange?"

"Like fire?" I asked.

"That'd be cool," Simon said.

"Really? You think?"

"No, you should maybe get blue instead," I told her.

"Blue would look really good on you, Ben, but not on me." Gina shook her head.

"I know! Purple," John said, as if he'd gotten the best idea of the century.

"That's a good idea, John. Now we'll just have to see what the drugstore has to offer."

The drugstore only made Gina's decision harder, especially when Simon decided to go with pink.

"What? But you can't fuckin' do that!"Gina stomped her foot.

"But take black, isn't that what Bill Kaulitz have?" I wanted to gag. Tokio hotel= shit, crap, cunt-stuff. Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, Teenage Bottlerocket etc= amazing, it will rock your fuckin' world.

"Not that again," Gina complained. "You know what? I'll go with green."

"Finally." John breathed a sigh of relief.

"Then we're going to Simon's so that I can dye my hair," Gina said, and John looked crushed.

"Am I the only one with a curfew?"

"Nope, but the only one who cares," Gina answered.

John rolled his eyes.

We walked to Simon's, 'cause Gina's was out of the question after the first disastrous visit we had had there.

John's wasn't really a place to go to if you were gonna dye hair, and my place was overrun by people in various stages of crazy.

After having some hours of fun, Simon and Gina dying their hair, I went home.

Walking.

_**Shimmer...**_

I stop. What the fuck? Hello? Jerk? Asshole? Some fuckin' voice in my head?

_**Belthazor never said...**_

Hey, I don't know any Belthazor, so fuck off.

_**Flame home... Faster...**_

True, I guess. Who the fuck are you?

No answer.

Oh fuck, I'm going crazy. Insane. More insane than mom.

Cole. I have to talk to Cole.

I shimmer into his penthouse, and what a surprise, he's sitting at his laptop.

"Who the fuck is Belthazor?" I ask. Yes, I lack tact.

He start. "Belthazor? Why, he tried to kill you?"

"No, but I got a voice in my head who mentioned him."

_**You don't know... He's him...**_

"You're Belthazor?" I laugh. What a silly name.

"The Source, I assume?" Cole asks. What the fuck?

_**Always was smart... He's killed, Ben... Did you know?**_

A splitting pain goes through my skull.

I pull out some tylenol from the bag, hurries into the kitchen and swallow some pills with water.

"Ben, don't listen to him," Cole tells me, having followed me to the kitchen.

"Well, why the fuck not? He's not keeping secrets."

"Ben, don't let him in. He'll take over your life, you, everything. We have to get him out of you."

_**He wants me back... The power that comes... Have demons worship him...**_

"You've had him too, haven't you?"

"Ben, he ruined my life. You don't want him to get a hold of you."

"Like he got a hold of you?"

_**I didn't really get a hold of him...**_

"Magic's fuckin' up my life," I tell Cole.

**AN: did you like? I know that it's an abrupt ending, but at the time i thought that that was a good place to end the chapter, and i still think so, sorta.**


	5. The Thing

**AN: The title sucks, i know**

I had been at Cole's the whole fuckin' night.

Hearing that voice taunting Cole and me about things that I did not know of.

I was tired. I must look tired, since I felt so tired.

I could barely see straight.

Cole looked tired too, very tired.

She was 7 am. Today, I was skipping, saying that I was sick, and everyone would believe it. Simon was there, and so was Gina. How fun could skipping be if you did it by yourself?

"I don't know what to do," Cole said.

_**He does, right Cole? You do know...**_

"He says that you know, what is it that you're not telling me? Gonna keep secrets?" I yawned.

"There isn't a way, Ben! You get that? There's no way to get him out of your head."

_**Liar, liar, pants on fire...**_

"You're lying," I tell him.

"Ben, stop listening to him. That's what he wants. You under his command. Before you know it, you'll be the voice in the back of the head."

_**I must have overrated him...**_

"Shut up," I tell the Source, the voice. "But isn't there a way to keep him where he is?"

He buries his head in his arms. "Of course. Yeah, there is. Wait here, I'll be right back," he tells me, the do something that looks like the fairy dust Tinkerbell has.

_**Tinkerbell?**_

"A Disney fairy. In Peter Pan. It's a funny movie." Disney cartoons was what we always watched at home, ages ago. Before grandma and grandpa moved in. Before mom got pregnant. When I came in first place.

_**Why don't you go to sleep?**_

"I don't think that would be wise." Maybe just shut my eyes for a while?

_**Yes...**_

"No. If you think that it's a good idea, then it isn't," I said firmly. Got to stay awake.

My eyelids drop, I put my head on the couch.

_**Sleep...**_

Fuck! Gotta stay awake. I can't go to sleep. That's bad.

Music. Phone.

I pull out my phone and start playing Dead Kennedys. Loud. Thank god I chose phone from the quality of the sound and not design. Like Gina, whose sound sucks like hell.

Music. Good. Listen to music.

_**Can't you just go to sleep? This won't work Ben... You know that, don't you? Go to sleep... Dream sweet dreams... Dreams are nice... Nicer than trying to stay awake listening to...**_

"It's Dead Kennedys, one of the best punk-bands there was, okay?" I snap. "Dreams aren't nice, they're mean. Tells you things you'd be better of not knowing."

After listening to Dead Kennedys in repeat, trying to stay awake while a voice inside your head tells you to go to sleep, Cole finally returns. He was holding a book, and a glass vial.

"Drink this." He held out the vial for me.

_**No, don't... Why would you drink it? Could be poison...**_

I don't give a fuck whether it's poison or not, I'm gonna drink.

I unplugged the vial, and drank in one gulp.

"Say this," Cole said and pointed at a passage in the book.

"Subsisto qua vos es, radix of vox in meus mens."

"OWW!" The pain was like a lightning, spreading to every part of me. Fuck, it hurt!

_**Owwww! No!**_

It all went black...

"Take it easy, Ben."

"Ughh." I groggily open my eyes. And blink several times at the bright light. Then I yawn.

"How are you feeling?" Cole ask me.

"Uh... pain."

"Where? Head?"

"Yeah." I try to sit up and everything spins. Cole's got five faces. Haha.

_**Uhh...**_

"He's still in there! He shouldn't be there, he should be gone. I... I... He shou..."

"Ben, it was just a subduing spell. He'll stay where he is, there is no known way to get him out of there, seeing as the victim usually is willing,"Cole told me.

"Why would anyone in their right mind want ?"

_**They want the power that I can give, Ben... That was what Cole wanted, then he started fighting back when he realized that I was about to take over... Funny, isn't it? He's a liar, Ben... Don't trust him...**_

"What are you going to tell your parents about this?" Cole asked.

"I'll let them come to their own conclusions. Can I sleep here for the rest of the day? Then they'll just think I was at Simon's, didn't call and then skipped."

"Are you sure about that, Ben? Are they, uh, good parents?"

_**His mother was very good...**_

The voice sounded as close to a leer as it possibly could.

"Yeah, they are, but I've got three siblings and an insane mother too, I'm relatively normal and old enough to handle myself."

Cole nodded.

"Okay, so I know that that's not considered normal behavior, but it works. I'm independent, and that's good. I've got friends, and good grades during fall and winter." He still didn't look comforted, so I went for the classic. "Fuck off."

_**Haha...**_

I went to lay down on the couch, but Cole put a hand on my shoulder and transfigured the couch into a bed.

I gratefully lay down on it.

_I was in a cave of some sort. _

_But it felt wrong, like I was my self, but at the same time not._

_It was supposed to be warm, and... blind._

_Instead I could see everything, and it wasn't right._

_They started chanting, the three sisters. The pale one was mean, she hated my dad. My dad was a nice guy, not at all evil. _

_One of them was my mother, and she liked me. I was supposed to be with her, and throw the pale one around. That was fun, but the bad music wasn't._

_The last of the women was trying to help me, ha, I didn't need help. I had everything. _

_Now I just needed to destroy them, the woman said. Then she was going to be my new mother, and take good care of me._

_I though that I had control, but I didn't. I killed myself. I didn't mean to._

_All I wanted was to... What was it that I had wanted?_

_Elizabeth had my son. She couldn't take him, could she? He was mine as much as hers._

_She shot something at me. But it couldn't be true. She couldn't be a demon like she had said. Our son was nice._

_He cared about people, and he was sympathetic._

_My little Coleridge was my son, and he was supposed to have a happy childhood._

_Death hurts. It burns._

_I was in a meadow, animals, cattle, was playing there._

_Laughing, playing around, having fun, acting like people._

_A lamb turned towards me. "Please don't eat us. We're just like you. Sentient beings."_

_A black lamb turned towards me. "You're a cannibal, if you eat us Ben. You eat yourself."_

I opened my eyes, breathing hard.

_**You're not going to give up meat?**_

"No, or... I don't know. Don't ask me questions that I can't answer," I snapped.

I check the clock on my phone. 2 pm. School's out soon.

Wonder what sort of food Cole has in the kitchen, maybe some old chinese. And water. Headache. Yet again.

_**You often get headaches? Migraines?**_

Why do you care? You're the one causing them.

I take a pill from the Tylenol pack, find the kitchen and swallow the pill with a glass of water.

I was right. The fridge was almost empty, except for old chinese.

Which I eat, then writes a note to Cole saying that I'm going home.

The source think that I should have written it on the wall, with fire. I thought that was a bit too mean. I've got a soul, ha!

_**Having a soul is just going to annoy you in the end, Ben...**_

You believe that crap. I don't.

When I open the door to the house, I meet grandma.

Not mom. Why couldn't mom have met me? Then I could just push by her and not give a fuck.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

_**You're in trouble...**_

Stop sing-songing and help me here.

"School." How am I supposed to get by her? Who else cou-

_**Who else is there... Sense...**_

Right. Um, mom, grandma and no one else. This is gonna go well. Grandma, who would just fuckin' love to skin me, and mom, who don't talk. At all.

"Maybe I should be more specific. Where did you sleep?"

"Simon's. I was gonna sleep over. Didn't you know?" Grandma raises her eyebrows, never really having mastered just raising one.

_**Get out of here... Nothing else you can do...**_

You're right.

I push grandma out of the way, got to my room and close the door behind me.

Grandma knocks on the door. "Ben? Stop lying, I know you weren't there. I'm going in."

"No, you're not." I throw myself against the door, using my weight to keep her out.

_**Can't you lock the door?**_

No.

"Do you have to be such a teen?" I hear grandma's footsteps as she walk down the stairs.

I slide down the door, and put my arms around my knees. I close my eyes, and lean my head against the door.

How could this have happened?

_**Because things like this happen to people like you...**_

Stop being mysterious, you're stuck in my head. And what the fuck do you mean with 'people like you'?

_**So because I'm stuck in your head, I can't keep secrets?**_

No, you can't. And answer the question!

_**No...**_

Feeling smug? Fuck you.

Someone knocks on the door. Mom.

Great. Just great. Now I have to talk to mom. And then dad. And then grandpa. Why does grandma have to be so grandma-ish.

"Mom, I've been in school and slept over at Simon's, which you forgot since you obviously hate me, okay?" She leaves.

_**Have you been to the underworld yet?**_

No, I haven't. Stop pestering me.

What am I gonna do? Seriously.

I'm a witch-

_**A demon, too...**_

Even better. The point is that I can't tell anyone, 'cause then I'll have to wear white with long sleeves for the rest of my life.

_**Bad...**_

Glad we agree on something. I open my eyes, and at the sudden brightness of my ceiling I abruptly close them.

I'm confused. My ceiling is painted white, it should not be bright.

_**By the inhabitants of the underworld white is considered bright...**_

I ignore the voice in my head and open my eyes again. The ceiling isn't bright anymore.

I'm going crazy.

_**Want to learn telekinesis?**_

Moving things with my mind? No thanks, I've got enough as it is.

_**Then what are we going to do? I'd like to go to the underworld, but you'd never agree with that. Wouldn't it be fun to kill a couple of manticores?**_

I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to visit Aaron.

I sense for him, and then concentrates on getting there.

In the middle of the journey, I get a splitting pain through my skull and, uh, loose focus.

**AN: cliffhanger! Hope you like. And this chapter has been beta'd by yours truly, but i've at leats gotten spellcheck to work so it should be okay.**

**And there will be an update tomorrow.**


	6. The Vision

**AN: Better title, right?**

I was in a cave, with dark walls made of earth and really not fit for use as a place called home.

_**Caves is what demons live in...**_

It reminds me of the cave that woman died in. I turned around, nobody here.

_**What woman? A brunette?**_

Blonde. What do I do now to get back to Aaron?

_**What makes you think that I will tell you that?**_

I don't know. Maybe that you're stuck here as well?

_**But I like the underworld... I was born here...**_

"What are you doing here? Don't think that I've seen you around before, have I?" A blonde, short and skinny guy stood there, dressed in black and a shirt with a picture of Hitler's face and a red cross over it. Not a Nazi then.

"I don't know, what the fuck are you doing here?"

_**Attitude, Ben, show confidence... You sure got a lot of it...**_

"You don't know what you're doing here? How can you come here and don't know what you're doing? Do you even know where you are?" He looked amused, he... I don't like him.

"I'm in the underworld, thank you very much. How do I get out of here, or won't you tell me?"

"And what do I get for telling you? Money?"

_**He's playing you, Ben... I think that I may have met him... You can kill him... He's only a darklighter... They're scum... Worthless... It's easy to get out of here...**_

Maybe I want to have a friend who knows what I am? Or is that too complicated for you to understand?

"You could get a... Fanta? A Nazi flag?" He lives in the underworld, maybe he'll accept that. Ha, what fun that would be.

"Hilarious." He walked closer. He had a really nice chest, flatter than a girl's, but still... nice. And that smile... He stopped in front of me and looked up.

He's so fuckin' short. He must be older than in his teens.

"Where were you going?" he asked.

"To a friend."

_**You've got a friend, why do you need more? **_

Because I want to have more than one guy I barely know, is that okay with you?

"Who are you talking to?" the guy asked.

"You."

"Okay. I'll get you out, I think. I'm not really sure..."

"How can you not be sure? It's so fuckin' easy to be sure."

"No, it really isn't."

Quiet. More quietness. Even more quietness.

"Have you decided yet?"

He nodded, slowly. That littl-

_**Calm down...Don't kill him...**_

I took a deep breath, and I could feel the heat leaving. The warmth, that was always there when I got mad. I itched to throw a fireball, but then I would never get out of here.

"What's stopping you to get out?"

"I don't know how to get out, you fuckin' moron."

"You just get out the way you came in."

"What do you mean, the way I got in? Oh. I just shimmer out then." How stupid can you be?

_**Very...**_

"Yes, and my name's Mikhail, what's yours?"

"Ben," I said and shimmered out. Then I concentrate on Aaron, and shimmer again.

I'm in a kitchen, and Aaron's standing at the sink peeling an apple. Then he turned around and was about to take a big bite from the peeled apple, when his eyes widen.

"Where the hell were you today?" he asks.

"Sleeping, mostly. Where were you today?"

"Uh, school. Duh. It's a school day.." He takes another bite out of the apple. "Were you attacked?"

"What? Why the fuck would I have been attacked?" I sit down on the kitchen table.

"You weren't in school today, what other excuse is there? You can't just skip," he protested.

"Yeah, you can. Have you never skipped before?"

"No, of course not. You can't just skip." Then realization dawned. "You just skipped."

"Yeah, and then there was the fact that I didn't go to sleep 'til the school started. What do you know about darklighters?"

_**Was that why you went here? That's completely irrational... Stupid...**_

I want to know about darklighters from someone who doesn't think that they're scum.

_**They are...**_

"What do you know about darklighters?" I asked.

"You were attacked by a darklighter? Ben, that's nothing to be ashamed about." I stared at him. "Wyatt's aunt is an advice columnist." He took a big bite from the apple.

"I wasn't attacked by them."

"One darklighter? Okay, that was ridiculous. Fine, I'll tell you. Darklighters is like the opposite of whitelighters, and hunt down and kill/turn potential whitelighters."

"Are they low on the social ladder in the underworld?"

"Why are you even asking me this? Wait, are you new to the magical world? Didn't hink that you were, the way you killed that demon was good. Yeah, they are."

"So what if I am new? That doesn't matter," I said defensively.

"No, I guess not. You want an apple? I can peel if you want," he offered generously.

"No thanks, just wanted to ask."

_**There was something else you wanted to ask?**_

"Was there anything else you wanted to ask?" Aaron asked.

"I guess," I said slowly. "You're half-demon, aren't you?"

"What about it? 's not my fault."

"Do you hear a voice in your head?"

"I'm not crazy, Ben. Magic do exist."

"I know that," I snap.

_**Why don't you ask Cole? He can answer...**_

"Just forget it, I'm going."

I left.

_**Nobody will understand, Ben... You can't have friends... They won't understand... They will never understand...**_

But you just said that Cole will understand.

I opened the door and walked in.

God hope that grandma won't notice that I don't have a schoolbag. But then if my bad luck would hold, she'd notice.

_**Leprechauns! They are behind this whole thing, maybe you should do some vengeance...**_

What have you got against leprechauns? They're like dwarfs.

No answer, do you have PMS?

Oh, I'm gonna have to ask Cole, won't I?

My hands started to get uncomfortably warm, as if fire wanted to get out.

I ran up the stairs and closed the door to my room.

Eh, music, I need music.

_**You need music to think?**_

I ignored him, and put on the music. Then I sat down on the floor, and put my head in my hands.

_**You seem to be doing this a lot lately...**_

Your fault, not mine.

Grimoire, I need the grimoire.

_**You've got a grimoire... Whose?**_

Cole gave it to me.

I started leafing through it. Looking at the pictures, strangely enough calmed me.

_**See, you like violence...**_

What are you up to now?

_**Your vegetarian diet... You were thinking about earlier on...**_

What? Oh, the dream. Doesn't matter.

_**But you were thinking about it...**_

So? That doesn't mean anything.

_**But...**_

I paused, where the fuckin' hell did that thought come from? I love meat.

_**Humans are weird...**_

True.

Who's he? I had stopped at the picture of a man, with an androgynous face.

_**Hades...**_

Who?

_**What do they teach you... I think they call it... Greek mythology...**_

I'll ask Cole. Greek mythology.

_**What, you don't know what it means?**_

I do.

_**I may be stuck in your head, but we're not getting married...**_

Ha! Funny that one.

I turned the page.

_I realize now, I have to die. There's no other way. I'll have to tell _them_._

_They'll kill me. Hahahah! Too well I can't die._

_The same man as in the picture was under water. His face was contorted in pain, and his hands were around his throat. Bubbles escaping his mouth._

_Then his eyes somehow saw me. Those eyes were terrifying, black... Endless, totally endless._

"_He's coming," he rasped. "Daddy's coming home."_

**AN: scary? hope so****. and please review, it would make my day**_  
_


	7. The God

"Ben, what the hell's going on?" Gina asked.

School. English. Grammar.

"Nothing, "I said.

"Oh, yes. Nothing's going on. Explains why you've been behaving so off the charts lately."

"What are you doing?" Simon whispered. Him and John was sitting in front of us.

"I'm trying to make Ben admit that he's started drug-dealing," Gina whispered back.

"Where the fuck did that come from?" I whispered.

"I'll take over," Gina told Simon, and then turned to me. "You have been behaving oddly lately, and today it's weirder than usual. And we've been talking about you, that's what we did yesterday, and well, drug-dealing does seem the most logical solution, so we thought why not?"

"No, you thought," John whispered.

"Fine," Gina whispered back. "Anyway, I thought that this would be the perfect time to ask."

"I'm not a drug dealer, Gina, I don't even do drugs!"

_**Stop yelling... The teacher may be heading this way...**_

My head snapped up and true enough, the teacher was heading this way.

"Are-"

"Shh, teacher alert." A look of understanding crossed Gina's face, and she started to work. Verbs.

After doing some honest to god-

_**God? You still believe in god?**_

It's just an expression.

"I'm not getting anything, Ben. Do you get this?" Gina whispered. She shouldn't have, because the teacher was nearby.

"And what are you gossiping about?" the teacher asked.

"Nothing, nothing at all," Gina said.

"Then why are you talking?"

"We're discussing verbs," I said, and in front of us, Simon hunched over, trying to contain his laughter.

"Oh, really. What's a verb?"

"A verb is something that tells what you're doing, like to drive and to breath." I answered. And that's the only thing that i know about grammar.

"Yes, like to draw," Gina agreed.

"I don't want to hear you talking again, you hear?"

"Yes, we hear."

The teacher left.

"That was a bit too close for comfort, right?"

_**When is it ever comfortable to be around you, Gina?**_

That was rude. And what the fuck's wrong with her?

"Hey, are you there?"

"What?" I asked. "Of course I am, I'm sitting right here. The teacher's coming."

_**He is?**_

No. Then I concentrated on the verbs, and at least I won't get a big, fat, red f.

The day didn't fly by, unfortunately. And it didn't help matters that I fell asleep. The usual thing you do when you're supposed to watch TV in class.

_Two people were at the seaside. Cole and a pretty, naked woman. All smiles._

_It was a nice vision, all mushy and romance. Until the chanting started._

"_He's coming." The woman._

"_You have to be warned." Cole._

"_You have to prepare." Them both._

"_He's coming."_

"_You have to be warned."_

"_You have to prepare."_

"_He's coming."_

"_You have to be warned."_

"_You have to prepare."_

"_He's coming."_

"_My seer, what did you see?"_

"_He's- he's dead. He has gone. I don't understand. They can't die, least of all Him."_

"_He, is dead. Can't be. You saw wrong," the Source decided._

"_No, I did not. He's dead, gone to his realm," the Seer said._

My eyes flew open. Simon was sitting next to me, resting his head in his hand.

"Nice dream?" he asked quietly.

"No, not really. What's happened?"

"Nothing special. It's a bad movie, no action at all, but lots of romance and heroics." Simon rolled his eyes.

What the hell were you talking about?

_**He disappeared... The Seer said that he was dead... But I stand by what I said... It can't be... Simply can't...**_

Then why was i dreaming about it? Doesn't make sense. And is it he with capital H?

_**I suppose... He was feared... He could kill you within the blink of an eye...**_

But now the greatest demon of all times is dead?

_**He was called the God of Death... I don't think he's good at dying... Nor will he go to the demonic wasteland like a normal demon... He was so much more...**_

Did you date him?

Then came the questions about the movie, that as usual nobody answered. The first three times we saw a movie and she asked, she seemed to get frustrated. Then she hardened and instead answered her questions herself, and also got into long debates about it. With herself.

Thank god the next lesson was canceled because the teacher had for some strange reason gotten stomach pains. Might have something to do with the riot our class started last time.

_**Riot?**_

Yeah, no big deal.

"Are you busy today?" Gina asked me as we left the school.

"Uh, yeah. I think so."

"And it can't wait 'til tomorrow? " Simon asked.

"No, it can't the world might go under," I said with a smile.

_**It might be forced into slavery...**_

That's not funny. I walked to a quiet and empty of people place and then shimmered to Cole, who was in his office.

"Cole, something's coming. Something big. Huge." I went straight to what I wanted to say.

"What, have you been having any strange dreams lately? Visions?" Cole asked, and looked as if he was actually taking this seriously.

_**He should...**_

"Uh, yeah. Both, actually. I think that the first thing was the woman who died, blonde. Then, yesterday I had a vision. This guy, was drowning, and everything seemed normal at first, until he told me that, quote 'daddy's coming home'. And then, today, you and some woman at a beach, she was naked, by the way, and then you started saying that I had to prepare. Then there was a cave, in which a demon, who the Source said was him, and the Seer. She kept saying that He was dead, and that it was impossible."

"Okay. What did the source say about that, Ben?"

"He said that He disappeared, and that he could kill within the blink of an eye, and that leads me to wonder how the fuck he managed to drown? Oh, and he was called the God of Death."

_**Hades...**_

"Hades," I repeated.

"And, he's warning you from daddy?" Cole said slowly. I nodded. "You're right, that's not good, not good at all."

"Why? You've met this Hades demon, or what?"

_**He wasn't just a demon... He couldn't die... He was the epitome of what a demon should aspire to be... A bit like Barbas, but not as mentally challenged...**_

"He's not just a demon, Ben," Cole told me disapprovingly.

"I know, the Source just ranted."

"Ben, what do you know about Hades?"

"That he's powerful, and that he couldn't die, but then why did he die?"

"That's a good question, and I'm not sure. But it might be that Poseidon killed him, though I don't see why he would do that. All that I could find about him suggests a calm, down to earth, person."

"He must've asked. Because of something, maybe this whole big thing."

"Maybe. That's a good idea, Ben."

"Thanks," I said and shone like a christmas tree.

"But then there's the fact that he's already returned,and was killed."

"Yeah, but..." I was at loss.

_**The Titans wasn't known for taking everything lying down...**_

"But he could've returned, couldn't he?"

"True. I'll have to check into it."

"How are you gonna do that?" I asked.

"You're not doing it. Too dangerous," he warned.

_**He will go to the Underworld and see if anyone knows something and is willing to tell him...**_

If you had a body you would roll your eyes.

Then I heard the door being opened.

"Mr Tur- I didn't know you had a visitor?" a suit-clad man in his forties stood in the door, a look of distaste on his face.

This is why I don't like lawyers, they hate me.

_**Why? You seem like a typical, hormonal boy...**_

Teen. And they do, it's that I wear black, and like punk.

_**And it might also be because he thinks that Belthazor payed you for some fun, and intimate pleasure...**_

That's a joke.

"He's my cousin, just visiting, and about to leave, right?" Cole then turns to me, and raises one eyebrow.

"Yeah, just leaving. To the library," I said, and then pushed myself past the guy in the doorway.

_**Library?**_

I'm not going to the library. Why would I go to the library?

_***Sigh**_

I'm going to the underworld to find Mikhail. Or maybe he's up here.

_**You met him once...**_

Yes, so what?

_**And you think that you can find him after having met him at the highest five minutes?**_

Well, the grimoire mentioned how witches scry, and I'm a witch, ain't I?

_**Yes, but a scrying crystal costs and where are you getting the money?**_

Fuck cares, I'll have to find place where you can get 'em first. Phone catalog, internet? Internet.

Visions!

_**Wouldn't work... You are not a seer ans therefore you can't get visions on demand...**_

Fuck off.

Thankfully, Cole's office lied next to a internet cafe, and I entered. Like with every internet cafe, you were supposed to bring your own laptop, all that came with the cafe except for expensive cookies, was a free connection to the 'net.

"Hey, excuse me, could I just borrow your mac? I have to find an address."

**AN:Cliffhanger! No, not really. I just wanted it to end here to keep all of my chapters about the same length. That's to say, short. Hope that you like, and please review. It would make my day.**


	8. The Firetruck

**AN: here comes chapter eight, I hope that you like. I think that it's the longest one yet, and i'm quite happy with it.**

**However, I don't really know what to do after this chapter. Option 1: writing a chapter from gina's pov, which I think would be pretty fun, and that would also introduce a plot thingie from her pov, which would also be fun. Option 2: I write a chapter featuring Ben and Hades, and some more underworld action.**

**Another thing is that I would like to introduce the Halliwells, and all that angst that will come with that, just how soon do you want it. That will also have an impact on the options 1+2.**

**so please, please review and give your opinion on this matter, otherwise the next chapter will take a while to write seeing as I don't know what to do with it. It's like domino effect**

"Can I help you with something?" the lady at the counter asked.

"No thanks, I think I can handle myself," I answered, and got a chuckle from her.

I had now found the magic shop, and what the fuck does a scrying crystal looks like?

_**I'm not sure...**_

Then my eyes fell onto a table with crystals on, and there it was, a scrying crystal. It was about two-three inches, and white.

And, of course, the lady was keeping a check on what the hell i was doing. I need a distraction.

_**Put something on fire then...**_ **_Or ask questions and then put something on fire..._**

"Do you make a lot running this shop?" I asked.

"Well, I go around, don't I? Are you sure that you don't need help?"

"Umm, no. I should've asked from the beginning, but have you got... uh, a book about numbers?"

_**Numbers?**_

I'm good at numbers.

"Yes, lets see, shall we?" She smiled invitingly at me, and walked out from behind the counter, towards the shelves. I quickly slipped the crystal into my pocket.

"Now, I have this one about arithmancy, the art of telling the future with numbers, is that what you were looking for?"

"I... Sorry, how much is she?" I dug into my pocket and found my phone, and with a few buttons pressed, the music started playing. "Phone call. Really sorry, but I have to go. Mom said that she'd call at dinner, and fu- god, I'm hungry."

I quickly walked out of the shop, and at the corner, shimmered away to my bedroom.

Now comes the hard bit, how the hell do you scry?

_**You could still be caught you know...**_

Doubt it, I was nice to her. Do you know how to do this?

_**You'll need a map...**_

And where the hell can you find a map? This is the goddamn internet age! Maybe in the living room, there's a bookcase there, at least.

_**Don't you need maps and such for schoolwork?**_

Eh, yeah, but have you ever heard of the internet? Great invention, there's lots of fun to be had there. You can watch porn, and find essays that mean you won't have to write them yourself.

_**You cheater... I like that...**_

Too bad the teachers don't.

I was now in the living room, had found an atlas and had brought it to my room.

At this moment, I was trying to figure out how to use the crystal.

It's a white, long crystal-

_**Though they don't have to be...**_

With a string attached.

_**Though there doesn't have to be...**_

No, of course not. There's a lot of things that it is, and a lot of things that it doesn't have to be. And that means that there are many models, like a book! It exists in all the fuckin' forms god created, but there's still one consistent use.

_**Though not always...**_

Fuck off.

There must be something in the grimoire.

I opened the grimoire, and in the back I found an index. Under S I found scrying.

_Scrying is a form of magic that is commonly used by witches to find demons and the like. It only works if the demon/the like has been stupid enough to not put up anti-scrying wards, or if the demon/the like hasn't done anything and therefor the whole thing is pointless. That's to say, pointless to put up wards._

_To scry you need a crystal. The crystal is commonly white, long and has a string attached. They scry by swinging the crystal above a map, that is usually incorrect since they can't make proper maps themselves, but buy them in some store for too much._

The most surprising thing is that the text actually informs you.

_**Cole's grandma was a racist, but this text seems to have been written by Cole himself...**_

That he actually knows something is great, isn't it.

Right, let's swing the crystal over...?

_**USA...**_

As good start as any.

I swung the crystal over the map, not really expecting it to work, when it landed on Washington DC. That's straight across the country.

I looked through the atlas, and found a map over the west part of north America. Unfortunately there wasn't one over Washington DC.

I decided to shimmer over there, and get to a tourist office.

When I got there, it didn't take me long to find one, and there I found a map over Washington DC. I scryed over the map, is that how you say it?

Whatever.

After having gone through all of that, I had finally found an address.

It was an apartment. A completely normal apartment in an admittedly bad neighborhood.

"Mikhail?" I called. There was the sound of movement, frantic, and then:

"Ben? What are you doing here?" Mikhail's head poked out from what I assumed was the kitchen.

"I wanted to ask something."

"Oh really. Then why didn't you knock?"

"Because I shimmered."

"Well, that's certainly no excuse," he said, and I got the impression of being reprimanded.

"And I think it is," I countered.

"Doesn't matter what you think, since I own this place."

_**I don't like him...**_

And I don't care.

"Proud of that?"

"Definitely," he replied with a smile, and I followed him into the kitchen, and it turned out that it wasn't a kitchen, but a living room with a big flat-screen TV, and a bed, made. I sat down on it, and he did too, and lowered the volume on the TV.

"Simpsons?"

"Let's not discuss my choice of TV-show, okay? What did you want to ask?"

"This will sound fuckin' stupid, but is something rising? Like, a titan?"

"Something is going on, I don't know if it's a titan, but it's not plausible," he answered.

"Because they've already risen? But they can do it again, can't they? Because something's going on."

"I didn't say that nothing was going on. And they had help last time, and I don't know who would be either stupid enough to bring them back again, or have the resources needed.

"Resources?" I asked, and then smiled when Maggie climbed the roof on the screen.

"Yeah, power. You'd need lots, and also have a big social network. And then, someone would've picked it up and he'd have been dispatched," Mikhail explained, and also turned his attention to the screen. Together, we watched the Simpsons. Until...

"Who stopped them the last time?" I asked. I couldn't help my curiosity.

"The Charmed Ones," he said with contempt.

"What's so bad with them?"

"They are a force of good," he said as if it explained everything.

_**You still don't know about the Charmed Ones? Haven't told you anything about it... They were the ones to kill me...Tried to, at least...**_

"Did they kill the Source?"

"Uh, yes, they did. But that was years ago, you were just a child then."

"Doesn't stop me from knowing anything about them, does it?"

"I guess. Though I'd say that their defeat pf Zankhou was more impressive"

_**What! I did not go through that for nothing... And they did not vanquish Zankhou... Impossible...**_

"Why? I- wasn't the Source powerful?"

"Yes, he was, but I am still of the opinion that the vanquish of Zankhou was far more impressive as the Source couldn't vanquish him himself, just lock him up. And the lockup was also impressive, very inventive."

_**Much better...**_

"Who are they? They're charmed, big deal."

"Really, it is. They're from a long line of powerful witches, there was prophecy about them," Mikhail said.

"So they're a family of charmed people? But what is it? A spell passed down through the generations, like a secret recipe or something?"

"No, not like that. They are three sisters, chosen for killing demons and the like."

"Just three sisters?" I asked, disbelieving.

"Actually, because their mother had an affair with her whitelighter, which is forbidden, they were four, however, one died," he said, grinning.

"Happy that the good also break the rules?"

"Yes, what do you say nowadays, awe- no that's wrong. Definitely!" he exclaimed.

"Fuck yeah is what you say, and how old are you?"

"Old. I grew up in the Soviet union," he said. At my blank look he elaborated. "Used to be Russia and countries next to Russia. It dissolved 1991."

"The eighties is ancient," I joked.

"Not the eighties."

"The sixties?"

He shook his head.

"Fifties?"

He shook his head, again.

"Forties?"

"You're getting closer. That's when i died. Starvation." I looked at him.

"Twenties?"

"Correct."

"From the Soviet union, which is Russia?"

"Not exactly."

"But your native language is Russian?"

"Yes it is," he answered and then he turned his attention back to the TV.

After some time, he asked: "You want any food?"

"No. I'll have to go," I told him.

"More to me, then. And you go outside, close the door and find a quiet alley that you shimmer from. No more shimmering right in, it's considered... mean, by the bigger part of the demonic population, you'll get killed if you continue on like that," he told me, and I left.

Why didn't you tell me that?

_**I wanted to see what would happen... If you would die or not... Maybe come back... You did it last time...**_

What last time?

I calmly walked up the street to the house, and right outside I could smell the smell of burnt meat, and I felt at home.

Strange things make you feel at home, huh?

Dinner was everyday stuff.

"Benjy, learned anything in school today?" dad asked.

"Like what?" I grunted, and continued my futile attempts at cutting the meat to bite-sized chunks.

_**It looks a bit like human meat... You sure that humans aren't cannibals?**_

Yup. But then grandma has an uncanny ability to make everything look like crap.

"Sorry?" I asked as I heard dad end a sentence.

"Like math, you really like math, don't you? If your grades are any indication."

"I didn't have math today."

"Cookie," he said.

_**Cookie?**_

Okie-dokie with a c.

_**Huh...**_

It's ridiculous.

I gave up trying to make something of the meat, and instead attacked the potato mash, which of course,were made from pulver, and too much water. In fact, it reminded me much more of soup than potato mash.

"I don't think that even whiskey can save this potato mash, Ben," grandpa said, he sat next to me and his expression was so sad that it was pitiful.

_**You pity him... You shouldn't pity an old, human mortal...**_

I do, because he's my fuckin' grandpa.

"Grandma, could I get a spoon for the soup?" Grandma's expression turned sour.

"Oh, don't bother, Benjy. It's time for dessert, and I bought donuts today!"dad cried out cheerfully.

There was frantic action around the table, as everybody hurried to get a doughnut.

And the baby started crying for being left behind.

I took two donuts, and went up to my room munching.

Your every day dinner.

I sat down on my desk after having moved everything on the chair and the table to my bed, which was now looking like a table on rickety legs with all my belongings on top.

As I sat there doing my homework, I smelled burnt plastic. And then I also heard Joanie's laugh, and Jamie cry.

_**Do you know what they are up to?**_

No, I don't, for some fuckin' strange reason.

_**Are you going to find out?**_

Joanie's probably burning some of Jamie's stuff up, or whatever., it's not that big of a deal.

_**Aren't you the least bit curious?**_

You are the one curious, but fine.

I walked out of my room, and to Joanie and Jamie's room, where, just as i had predicted, Joanie was burning up Jamie's firetruck. Oh, the irony.

I leaned against the door frame. "That's good for the irony, Joanie," I said.

"Irony? Don't you mean iron? Or island, I think that those words are pretty much the same," Joanie said.

I laughed.

"It's not funny!" Jamie bawled, his face red. The Source chuckled in my head, then it went to full-blown laughter I couldn't help but smile.

"Ben, what did you do?" Grandma came and asked, looking like all that she wanted to do was to mysteriously find a gun and then shoot me.

"Nothing, why the fuck do you think _I_ did something?"

"Because you're usually the perpetrator, Ben," grandma answered. She had obviously done too many crosswords.

"So then you just assume that it's _me_? Why the hell would I upset them? I usually _avoid_ 'em!"

the fire on Jamie's firetruck catapulted itself into the air.

_**Calm down...**_

I took deep breaths, turned on my heel and walked back to my room, hands fuckin' itchin' to throw a fireball.

**AN: so, what do you think? And please review, and give your opinion, it would mean os much for me, and the time it takes for the next chapter to come. Also, if you'd actually give your opinion, please say pros and cons, too.**


	9. The Pretender

**AN: Sorry about the last authors note, I realized some time after I had posted that I already had started writing the next chapter, so I decided to finish it today, and then I decided that gina intrigues me, so I wanna know more about her, and therefore I am writing a chapter from her pov, which will probably become a two-part.**

Let's say that I knew from the beginning that the day wasn't going to turn out normal. That would be a lie. I'm okay with lying, so let's say that.

I woke up, I went to school and did not skip the first class to have a sleep-in, only to get that sleep-in interrupted by grandma..

I met with my friends, and we had nice chit-chat, no swearing involved, no arguments, just the sort of chit-chat that grandma likes to do.

I did great in class, 'cause I'm that smart. I behaved too, why not?

Then came lunch, which Gina ate, she wouldn't dream of anything else. John didn't read, why would he? Simon and I was taking to each other, and we weren't stabbing our forks into our plates.

Then came math, and I did really bad because I suck at math. However, Simon and Gina did great. Answered all the teachers questions, didn't throw erasers at me, everything was fine.

We all walked home together, even John who didn't have to catch the bus.

On the way home, together, we didn't get attacked by a demon.

Everything was like a Hardy Boys novel, with Enid Blyton mixed in.

In reality, what happened was this:

I woke up to the lovely melodious voice of grandma.

"You get up right now! You started five minutes ago, and your head is under the pillow! You have to get up! And what happened to your room? Was it a tornado? Because that's the only thing that can explain it!"

_**Banshee...**_

True.

Then, after the class that I had skipped ended, I met with Simon and John, then Gina joined.

We had a fight, and it wasn't pretty. Simon is, after all, known for holding his anger inside, and he hates me. Gina has always liked Simon more than me, so she took his side. And John, just can't pick a side. I hate him for that. And it only made the fight worse, since he tried to step in and stop it, which didn't work, but he did manage to get words like 'nerd' yelled at him.

I didn't do well in class, 'cause I didn't think that we were learning anything of use, instead Simon and I continued our fight. The teacher got quite mad at us.

At lunch, Gina didn't eat at all because I had said that she was fat. John sat and read Stalingrad, about some historic event or another. He'd gone all crazy over the author, Tony Beaver. Simon and I were glaring at each other, trying to get food on our forks by stabbing them into the plate. Suffice to say, we didn't get anything on 'em.

Math came, and I love math. Which the teacher knew, so she asked me questions. I got them all correct, signal for Gina and Simon to throw erasers at me, while having a conversation that went like this:

"He just has to know everything," Gina complained.

"He's making up for areas that he lacks in,"Simon 'joked'.

"His must be really tiny, then," Gina giggled.

After school, we all got home separately. They all got home in peace, without a demon attack.

Me, on the other hand got attacked. Brute demon, the Source told me.

And that's what really happened.

What happened when the demon attacked was this:

He punched me, I staggered backwards and then fell on my ass, which is the firmest ass around.. Then, the demon growled, and I cracked up (laughed). The brute demon then tried to pound me into the pavement, bad news for him was that I got mad and he burned up.

I killed a demon, and I was happy 'bout it, until the vision came.

_It was a cave, with a fire in the middle. It must be somewhat artificial, because there was no hole in the smoke had no way of coming out._

_Then, a demon entered the cave, deep in a book and then absently threw something in the fire._

_From the fire, the demon that I had just killed rose, screaming._

_The other demon, the one that I had not killed, closed his book and asked: "How did it go?"_

"_He killed me, that son of a bitch!"_

This is great, I didn't kill him.

_**I haven't seen that spell before...**_

Now I'll have to kill both of 'em.

_**You could always leave them be...**_

No. It sounded as if they were planning something, something that has to do with me, and I don't want to die.

_**How are you going to find 'em?**_

I'll just scry.

_**What are you going to do then?**_

I'll kill the one that I haven't killed already first, and then the other guy.

I shimmered to my room, then carefully closed the door, as quiet as possible so that grandma wouldn't hear and come and investigate.

I scryed, concentrating on the demon that I had killed and the vision that I had had, and I still couldn't find them!

_**You haven't got a map of the underworld, you're scrying over USA, they could be in another part of the world...**_

Well, what the hell am I supposed to do then?

_**Sense for them...**_

Why didn't you fuckin say that before?

Then I took a deep breath, no need to put anything on fire.

I lay down on my bed, held the crystal in my hand hoping that it would somehow help, and did it the exact same way as before, though I didn't swing the crystal over the map of US of A.

then, in the back of my mind, I could sense them.

I threw the crystal in some general direction, and shimmered there.

I saw the demon that I had already killed and I immediately threw a line of fire at the demon, who saw it and ducked in time. He threw a fire ball at me, and I ducked. He shimmered to behind me, I knew it and threw a punch that broke his nose. He dropped and did a roundhouse kick. I didn't react in time, so I fell on my ass.

The demon then loomed over me, and grinned like a wolf or something. He threw a fireball at me, and I rolled away just in time. I then used my arms to push myself up and be able to stand, and then the demon hit me in the face. I fell on my ass yet again. I swung my legs underneath the demon, and he fell.

_**Try to push him away from you... Hand gesture...**_

I stood up as fast as I could, and threw out my arms, directing my anger to him. Instead of getting pushed away from me, he blew up.

The other demon, the one with the book, just smiled at me, and made a note in the book. Like he was a scientist and I his experiment. He then tried to shimmer away, but then I tried what the Source had suggested, but instead of directing my anger, I just tried to throw him across the cave.

He flew across the cave like an acrobat, doing a particularly difficult trick. When he hit the wall, he laughed. I threw a blue line of fire at him, and then ran forward to save the book.

It was lightly singed, but not that badly harmed. I opened it, to see what it was about, but I didn't understand a thing.

_**I don't understand...**_

Sucks to be you.

Now, which fuckin' language is this? And you don't know? That's just great.

The only good thing about this day, is the book that I stole. Even though I don't understand what's in it.

I think about it a bit more, and then I decide that that's one of the bad things that has happened today, but the ass kicking was good. And blowing things up... that's like a dream come true.

**AN: the book Stalingrad really exists, and it's a great read about one of the battles during WWII, and it's written by Anthony Beevor. Anyway, please review**


	10. Gina's Week

**AN: This might be the longest chapter of this story, i hope that you like it**

I had always loved drawing. It was so much fun, and you couldn't help but smile while doing it. The best part of it was all the color, the most amazing of them all being orange. The different shades of orange were countless, and the most amazing orange thing is hair, curly, orange hair. You can go fuckin' crazy with it.

_Monday_

I was eating my cereal, with chocolate milk. I really shouldn't, but it was so tasty, I really couldn't stop myself.

When it was time, I went to school, dreading it.

Right before the school gates I pulled up my hood and walked by. No way in hell was I going to a place that I didn't want to be.

Instead I went to a nearby cafe, sat down at one of the tables and was grateful that I had brought my sketchbook.

Ten minutes later, I had the beginning of a drawing; Simon shooting himself in the head, Ben with his head on fire, and John over-dosing on books.

I didn't really get why the hell I included him in the picture, but I guess that he had grown on me, like some really creepy fungus.

"Hey," a waitress came over and said. I would never want to work as a waitress, you stand up all day and you'd get minimum wage. At least I think that that is how it is. "You can't sit here for free, you know. Have to buy something or leave."

"Don't be such a bitch," I told her and went back to my drawing. No way in hell was I buying anything, I'd already eaten breakfast.

"No, but seriously, _bitch_, if you don't buy anything, you'll have to leave."

"And I don't want to buy anything, an I don't feel like laving just yet. Look around, _bitch_, the place is nearly empty, if they see someone sitting here, it'll make the cafe go 'round."

"Nah, it won't, you'll have to leave, _bitch_."

"You fuckin' bitch!" I yelled.

Damn, now I would have to find another cafe. I yawned. Or maybe go to sleep, but was I really that tired?

No, I had a drawing to finish. No way in hell am I going to bed without having colored the flames on Ben's head.

_Tuesday_

At three am I fell asleep, and slept through most of the day.

When I woke up, at three pm, Ben, Simon and John was there. John was, I really should've seen it, carrying my homework.

I groaned.

"Did you have to bring me my homework?" I asked John.

"If y-"

"Don't bother 'bout him, Gina, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it, and you're beautiful," Ben said, then his eyes went to my chest.

"Ben, it's okay, good to know I'm pretty."

"Ginny," Simon said and laid down on the bed next to me. "Know what happened today? And let me tell you, this is a miracle worthy of the fucking bible!"

"Simon, stop it!" Ben yelled.

"Ben, this is one of the only times that Simon is right," John said. "So stop it yourself."

"Okay, listen carefully. First, I'm not lying. Now, listen."

"Simon, get to the point." I turned towards him, and we lay there, staring at each other. I could see Simon's spots.

"Ben was wrong."

"But that's not big!" I exclaimed and sat up, grateful that I always wore a t-shirt to bed.

"In math."

The world had stopped spinning.

"I just got it wrong, that's nothing weird! Besides, it was so fuckin' tiny that it doesn't matter."

"But it does!" Simon exclaimed.

Ben then sat down at the end of my bed, laying Simons' legs in his lap, and leaning against the wall.

"You can sit in the chair, John. They don't bite."

"You can put the things on the desk, on the mac," I told him. My mac was big, because I needed that huge screen for reference drawings. In my family, printing is out of the question since the printers are evil.

They stayed for the rest of the afternoon, and we talked, joked and ate. It was a lot of fun.

Then they left, and I was left to my own devices. I also sketched, trying to make the drawing look like Bill Kaulitz; I'm not good at realistic drawings. But I loved drawing realistic hair, orange hair especially. Why couldn't Bill Kaulitz dye his hair orange, or red like Gerard Way?

_Wednesday_

Today, I went to school, even though I missed the first class. But it was math, which I hate since Ben's great at it, and I'm not. Usually Simon and I spend the math classes teasing Ben.

Second class was English, which I'm not good at either, but we were only supposed to read because we had a substitute.

Lunch sucked. It was fish soup. I hate soup. Ben should know that.

"Come, on, eat now. I said that I didn't mean it, please Gina," Ben pleaded.

"It's soup! I'm allergic to it, I'm telling you."

"You can't be allergic to soup," John said.

"Of course I can. It's wet and awful and it's always fish in it. Fishes are evil."

"Take something else then," Ben suggested. "And it's not the fishes, it's the water."

"She doesn't have to eat, Ben, she can become a thin, ugly stick if she wants to."

"Simon! You know that I hate soup!"

Then, after lunch and break, Ben sent me a note. In Ben's scrawl, that I never thought would get better, it was written: **I'm sorry.**

I wrote back: _I get that, and I have forgiven you._

**That's a load of shit, and you know it. What can I do to make up for it?**

_I have forgiven you Ben, so stop it, or I'll break you Benjamin._

**Haha.**

_Thursday_

"Bye!" I called out to Simon, John and Ben as they went over to John's to watch some comedy or whatever.

I was going to take the bus to an art supply shop, which lies next to a cafe, it's probably part of their carpeting strategy or whatever.

In the art supply shop, I find a pack of Derwent pencils and a sketchbook on sale, so I buy them.

After that, I go to the cafe where there is a huge line, so I start doodling in my sketchbook while standing in line. It's a bit stupid, I know, but it works, like, a second. Then I give up, since I've decided that it's not worth the ache in my arms to sketch in line.

When it's my turn, I buy what I want, and then I turn around. Fuck. All the seats are taken, and I've even bought a cupcake and hot cocoa today, I deserve a seat.

I could ask that guy, I suppose. He's hot. I elbow my way over there, and then ask:

"Could I sit here?" The hot guy didn't even look up.

"Sure." He kept typing away at his laptop.

I sit down in the chair across him, and put my bag on the table. The hot guy glares at it. I don't care. I take a bite out of my cupcake, no doubt getting glaze on my upper lip, and sip at the cocoa. It's much better than the tea that Ben likes. Or the beer that Simon nicks from his father. Or the coffee that John drinks to be able to read through the night.

I continue to eat my cupcake, and continue my sketch, while watching the hot guy. I want to talk to him! Finally, he stops writing and close the lid of the laptop.

"Why are you staring at me?"

"Are you British?" I asked.

"Yes. Are you American?"

"No school now, or what?" I change the subject, tired of the earlier subject.

"Yeah, biology. I hate it, bloody not useful, it is."

"What are you doing here then? Why not be home and sleep."

"Well, I like to write, so I thought that I would be an author, and this is sort of like a cliche, the whole author writing in a cafe, but I like 'em."

"You like cliches?"

"Yup, what about you then?What do you like to do in your free-time?" Now _he_ changes the subject.

"Well, I..." Oh god, what the hell was I supposed to say?

Gina, concentrate on the hand, make the shadow seem real. Then I realized what the hell I was doing.

"I like to draw, as you can probably see," I said with a giggle, thinking myself stupid.

"You're great at it, you could probably make a living out of it," he said, nodding towards the picture I had been drawing. "Though you might want to draw something less morbid."

"So I've been drawing me strangling Ben who strangles Simon, but, I'm just being realistic, it could actually happen."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"And you would actually strangle your best friend, who then strangles his best friend?"

"We're all friends, me, Ben, Simon and John," I told him.

"What, you're the only girl?"

"Yeah, I guess, never thought of it that way. We're all friends."

"Is there anyone in your group of friends who has crazier hair color than you?"

"Simon, his hair's pink."

"That's..." the guy trailed off.

"Sorry, I didn't get your name?" I asked.

"I'm Guy," he said, and then seemed to regain the ability to speak. "Pink hair, isn't that a bit gay?"

"Simon doesn't think that way, so I guess not. It's more like, here am I, now stare and say that I'm handsome."

"And what's your name? This is bonkers, I know your friends names but I don't know yours."

"Gina."

"Like Tina," guy said. "My mum's name is Tina."

"I remind you of your mom?" This I just great, I've found a guy that's interested in me, and then I remind him of his fuckin' mother.

"No, not at all. You're much more fun."

"Great. Listen, I've gotta go," I told him and collected my stuff.

"I didn't-"

"Shut it," I told him tiredly.

I left my now empty cup and the rests of my cupcake on the table, and went home.

Bastard, asshole, jerk, idiot, moron, god, I hate him. I hate everything about him.

_Friday_

"Right, what do you want to see?" John asked.

"What've you got?" I asked. Ben, John and Simon stared at me.

"Do you expect me to know all the movies by title?"

"Don't you?" I asked. They continued to stare at me.

"It's over a hundred movies, Gina, and he thinks that his books are better so those are the ones that he has memorized," Ben told me.

"Ben!" John yelled, expect- no, that's not it. It's something that John has said before but I can't remember it. This is a very good argument to having a computer for a brain, connected to the internet with perfect memory. Then I'd know that word.

"Not an action film," I told John.

"Yeah, that's the one thing that he doesn't have," Simon told me and I gaped at him.

"You're a guy, you're supposed to have action films! Like Superman and the Hulk, or whatever."

In the end, we watched a movie called Pay It Forward, which was John's mom's favorite. She started crying at the end, when he died.

The best part of the evening was the popcorn war, that we then left to John to clean up.

_Saturday_

My cell was ringing. I answered.

"Hey?"

"It's me."

"Who?"

"Ben."

"Right."

"Hey, Gina. Could you help me dye my hair black?" Ben asked.

"What?"

"Could you help me dye my hair black?"

"Okay," I answered.

Ben came over, with a packet of black hair dye, and we did it. The result was great, Ben should've been born with black hair.

He looked in the mirror and ran his hand through it, then smiled at the mirror. He looked good, and much older than he was.

"You look great."

"I know." Ben gave me a shit-eating grin.

_Sunday_

"Dad! There's no milk left!"

"Go buy some then!" he yells back.

Grumbling, I take some money from the big jar on the kitchen counter and stomp to the nearest store.

I walk through the aisles, trying to find the dairy one, it shouldn't be this difficult. Yes, there it is.

"Right, hello," a voice says behind me.

That little bastard, again.

"Let me guess, this is yet another cliche. Follow the pretty lady that you're in love with into the store where she's shopping. Viva Blackpool is my favorite series, you can't fool me."

"I am actually shopping," he informed me. "Perhaps you're a bit too self-centered."

"You're not shopping! I know that that's a fuckin' lie."

"So, maybe you're right, but it's like I said, cliche's are wonderful," he expla- no, that's not it.

"Then you don't actually buy tampons?"

"No," he said.

"If you're not buying all of that, maybe you could pay for the milk?" I suggested.

"Then I'd like a kiss, first."

"You'll have to pay for the milk first," I told him.

"All right."

We go to the cash register and he pays, then I run off, and jump onto a bus, and pump my fist, and flips the bird.

**AN: Please review, and tell me what you think**


	11. The Tree

**AN: Right, I've started up two new stories, I Have A Crack In My Wall, and Expectations. IHACIMW, I Amy-centric, and E is a drwho/hp xover, which centers around Sirius Black and the Doctor 10. if you're familiar with the fandoms, please check them out, as I'm rather proud of them.**

**Anyway, after the Gina chapter, it will be about Ben, and friends. One canon character will be introduced as Ben's friend, but I want more, so I'm open to suggestions about characters, like, you can come up with your own and I'll incorporate them into the story. Please do, it'll help me a lot.**

**Anyway, after that, there will be another chapter from another's POV, a new minor plot, and then the action will start.**

I hate rain. It rains a lot in Seattle. I don't get why they all go on about Forks, when it must rain just as much here in Seattle. Honestly, it must be more. A hell of a lot fuckin' more.

As much as I hate rain, I still walk to school at Cole's insistence.

Finally, I enter the school, and pull the hood of my head, and drag my hand through my hair. I like having black hair. Mikhail says that it makes me look handsome. He's gay, I'm sure. Just like John is gay. And Gina anorexic. And Simon a to-be alcoholic. And I'm a to-be successful.

* * *

I really don't like school. It's even worse when you get in a fight, which in itself isn't that bad, except when you get detention... then it's all very good when you have magic powers.

_I put the locker that belonged to Dave on fire, then I shimmered to the office, and put the computers on fire too. Evidence destroyed. Mission complete._

* * *

And there Aaron was, I could see him trying to be inconspicuous, looking around to see if he could see anyone, then his tongue shot out of his mouth (he'll never get a girlfriend, not with that tongue) and catch a leaf, which he promptly spat out.

"Don't like leaves then?" I asked, stepping out of my hiding place.

"No, I-"

"Just wanted to see if you could catch it, I see."

_**Like a human toddler sticking peas up his nose...**_

A bit like that, yeah.

"Is it fun having a tongue that long?" I asked, and sat down next to him.

"Well, sorta, I thought that it was a lot of fun as a kid, but it do get a bit weird sometimes."

"Okay. I catapulted a fire that my sister started into the air once, then there was the time when fire came through my eyes, that was a bit surreal, to be honest," I said with a smile.

"My friend, Wyatt, once fell down a cliff, and he's got this blue, water-ish shield, so he bounced around for hours, until he got the bright idea to orb off," Aaron said, with a laugh.

_**Hahahhaah...**_

"Orb?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's like shimmering but only whitelighters, and darklighters, can do it," Aaron explained.

"It's limited?"

"Well, of course, all forms of transportation are. Only demons, or, half-demons, or the phoenix witches can shimmer."

"But doesn't that mean that there's at the least a million of exceptions to it?"

"The exception that confirms the rule," Aaron said softly.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Do..." I trailed off.

_**What the hell did you do that for?**_

Have you been listening to me all the time, or what the hell?

"Fine. Do you know if something's going on?" I asked.

"I think that something's going on, yeah. It's like a... gut feeling, instinct, that something's not good. I get that feeling about you as well," he told me.

"What?"

"Yeah, you feel dangerous, but I don't think that you are. It might be the jacket," I looked down at my jacket, and couldn't find something wrong with it," or it could be that hair that's sorta freaky, and reminds me of someone."

"Like who?" I snapped. My hair looked great.

"I don't know, I haven't got eidetom-"

"Eidetic."

"Eidetic memory. I could send a picture of you to Wyatt and see if he could ask either his mom or his aunts or someone else."

_**NO!**_

Fuck... Stop yelling, for god's sake!

"You okay?" Aaron asked, pulling out his cell from his pocket.

"Yeah, I'm great, really, I am. And no, you don't have to do that," I said, nodding at his phone.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because!" I exploded, not literally, not me, I just blew up a tree and put it on fire.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed and the fire catapulted, just like it had done with the fire-truck.

Aaron grabbed my wrists and we shimmered out of there, to Aaron place.

"Aaron, what did I tell you about shimmering in?" a man called.

"Sorry, he just got mad and then a tree blew up, and then he got even more pissed and it was put on fire."

"Yeah, sorry," I mumbled. "I'll be leaving, got to meat a friend."

_**Who?**_

Cole.

"What? Since when?" Aaron asked.

"Since I destroyed a perfectly innocent tree."

Aaron dad looked confused.

"He's a witch," Aaron explained. If you judged from Aaron dad expression, that was a very good explanation, and all in three words. Amazing.

_**Watch it...**_

I shook my head, and then tried to calm myself down.

"I'll be going now," I told them.

"Right, I'll show you the door," Aaron said and led me out of the house, babbling on and on about how I had to keep calm. I though that he should be glad I had enough control over myself not to strangle him.

Finally outside, and away from Aaron's fuckin' annoying _babbling_, I shimmered to Cole's office, and ranted.

"Look at the bright side," Cole muttered, after I had finished.

"What bright side? I blew up a tree. And what was left of it I put on fuckin' fire. Yes, I can see the damned bright side!" I yelled, waving my arms in the air and fire shot from my hands.

_**You should stop doing that...**_

Cole froze the fire before it did any damage, and then it went poof.

"Why can't I do that?" I complained.

"There's an easy answer to that," Cole said absentmindedly.

I flipped the bird.

"Very civilized, Ben. 'Every cloud has a silver lining', think about that."

I itched to blow him up, but I knew from experience that it wouldn't work.

I though about what he said, and came to the conclusion that a cloud couldn't have a silver lining, whereas a shirt can.

_**That's not what you were supposed to think... **_The Source growled.

So what?

"Ben," Cole said softly. "The bright side is that if you get attacked, all you have to do is blow up the attacker. You have lots of powers and that means that you can do pretty much whatever you want."

"Well, that's great and all, but what if that doesn't happen? Then I'll just continue blowing up trees for no apparent reason, except getting angry, and then normal people don't blow up trees!" Then, of course, the room started shaking.

"I'd advise you to calm down, but on the bright side it seems as if you're developing telekinesis," Cole said with a shit-eating grin.

I growled at him, to my surprise, then flamed out.

As soon as I hit the bed (I had developed the technique of throwing myself at it over the years), I had a vision.

_Dave._

_Dave walking across the street, deep in his phone, getting run over by a car._

I had a big smile on my face, when the vision ended.

_**Getting vicious are we?**_

**AN: Please review!**


	12. The Girl

**AN: Here it comes, and it introduces a new character. Hope you like, and that you review, something that would make my day**

Going down to the Underworld was very stupid, I knew that.

But in my defense, I hadn't had any creepy dreams, or scary visions about Hades's evil dad, so

I had to go down and check. And in my defense, yet again, the Source of All Evil who usually lived down in the Underworld, but was currently taking up residence in my head, wanted to see his home again. And since his nagging had already cost: a car, three books, a house and my best jacket (which I did get back with a spell, though it hasn't been the same), I decided that I should probably go down there. Just because you do something that you're not supposed to, doesn't mean that it will all go to hell.

With me, I was carrying the book, who had a very useful map drawn all over (even on the text, which made me wonder if I was ever going to be able to decipher it), if I only could read it. I concentrated on it, and then walked into a wall. Whatever. I gave up.

_**Better flame that book out of here...**_

"Bedroom," I said loud and clearly, and the book flamed itself from my hands.

I heaved myself upon my elbows, and managed to stand up with the help of the wall. I don't have the best balance, not after having hit my hand when I landed on my ass, which seems to be a habit of mine.

Instead of following the map, I now wandered around aimlessly, with the Source playing commentator.

_**That was where Anthony bashed some whitelighters head in, he kept it up for a couple of months... Even made money on it, until Wanton ripped his head off, he was a brute demon, and the money burned up, you can't accuse a brute demon of thinking...**_

Well, if you know that much, maybe you could tell me who she is?

She had tanned skin, short skirt and long-sleeved, with flip-flops. She didn't fit in, even less than I did, and had probably been following me around.

There was a quiet a while, then _**No...**_ _**But she reminds me of someone...**_

You're the Source of All Evil, if you've been doing your job, you should recognize everyone.

To add to the fact that the girl had probably been following me around, there was a cave in front of me, that I hadn't seen since I had been too busy listening to the Source. And of course, while I was standing there, they started moving around.

I turned around and then hid behind a nicely placed rock... which she also did.

"What the hell are you doing down here?"

"I could ask you the same thing!"

"Oh really?"

"Who's there?" one of the demons called. The girl and I turned to each other at the same time, and said "Shhh."

Quietly we tripped backwards, when I hit the wall, and then she. We shouldn't have done that.

"There's someone there!" the demon called.

I grabbed her arm, and shimmered out, and into my room.

"Let me go!"

"Shut the fuck up, my fuckin' grandma is down there, and I'm not allowed to have people in my room unless I introduce them to her first," I hissed.

"And you follow that rule?" she asked disbelievingly.

"Of course not, but if you could keep it down?"

"Fine," she huffed.

I closed the door with the help of my telekinesis, and threw myself on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"Sooooo. What's your name?"

"Ben, you?" I asked.

"Beatrice," she replied without hesitation.

"Are you lying?" I asked, because I was having this weird feeling...

"No," she said a bit too fast. I turned my head towards her.

"Bianca."

"What the hell were you doing down there?"

"No, what the hell were you doing down there with a weird book, that then flamed away?"

"What, never seen that before?" I snapped.

"Don't be such a jerk."

"Ben?" grandma called from downstairs. I jumped up from the bed, and waded to the door, then opened it. Bianca hid herself behind the door.

"Yes!" I called.

"Is there someone up there?"

"No, just watching a video on YouTube!" I called back, then closed the door again. Then I waded over to my stereo and turned it on.

When the music started blaring, Bianca was sitting on the bed and scrunching her nose.

"What, you don't like it? At least look at it form the bright side, she can no longer hear us," I told her.

"That... comes out wrong."

I thought back to what I had said, and realized that she was right.

"Whatever," I said, and also sat down on the bed, as my desk chair wasn't really in a condition that made you want to sit on it. "Anyway, could you answer why you were down there?"

"No, can you answer that?"

"Course I fuckin' can. Curious."

"Yeah, me too. Where are we? I mean, we're at your place, but where is it? It doesn't look like California to me."

"Wait, you live somewhere warm and no rain? I'm not entirely sure that that's fair. Anyway, you're in the great, and rainy, city of Seattle, Washington."

"That's a long way from home."

"No it isn't. From Arctic to Antarctica is a long way."

"Could you show me around?" Bianca asked, and I did.

Personally, I didn't think that there was much to see in Seattle, but Bianca had a differing opinion, in the beginning, before I had shown her the place where I buy CD's, the candy store, the T-shirt store...Though she had a really nice ass, even when she was bored.

Bianca was walking behind me, when she suddenly grabbed my arm, twisted it, and forced me to my knees.

"So, what, you're a half demon, whom go down to the Underworld for kicks, without knowing how to defend yourself?" Bianca asked.

I grunted in response.

_A man with long hair was telekinetically holding another guy in a choke hold, when a girl, who looked a bit like Bianca, put her hand through the blonde guy's chest, so that he dropped the other guy._

_The older Bianca flew across the room and landed on a table's leg, and it pierced her stomach._

When the vision let me go, I was laying on the ground, on my back.

"You okay?" Bianca asked, worried.

"Don't you dare do that again," I told her.

"Because you passed out?" she asked, with a smile on her face.

"No, it's because I said so!"

"Okay, okay."

A blinding pain seared through my head, then I t was gone as quickly as it had come.

* * *

"Have you had fun today, Benjy?" dad asked.

"Yeah, I did. Met a girl," I told him.

"Did you-"

"Stop being such a douche," grandma said.


	13. The Death

**AN: I got a review. I'm so happy!**

**Anyway, to ( ), I think that it's going to be soon. There'll be this chapter, at least another, maybe one more, and then he'll crash, sort of.**

We had all been ordered to assemble in the assembly, which wasn't as simple as it sounded. This school, was tiny. This school, never had assembly except for when our principal on a whim decided that we needed one, which didn't actually happen that often.

As it was, those a year below me, and some small in my grade, sat on the floor. Gina and I, sat on the chairs, while John and Simon sat at our feet. Gina and I felt like king and queen. I, at least felt like it.

"Isn't that cute?" I asked Gina.

_**Cute? It makes me nostalgic...**_

"That they're sitting at our feet?" she giggled. "Oh yeah, it really is."

"Can you two shut it?" Simon asked.

"Why?"

"You're sitting at our feet, we're your king and queen," I said.

"No, you're a freak," Simon said, pointing at me, "and you're big," pointing to Gina.

"Am not!" she retorted. Simon ignored her.

"Johnny, could we change place? Ben's legs aren't the nicest around, in fact, they're fuckin' awful," Simon asked.

They changed place, and Simon leaned against Gina's legs, looking as if he was high, and said: "This is heaven. Because your legs are round, and his are sticks."

"Are you saying that I'm fat?" Gina asked.

"Course you aren't," I said, because as amusing as it was watching Gina and Simon fight, this just wasn't the place.

But it would be so much fun...

"There has been a sad fall for us. First, our favorite coach," you could hear a collective snort coming from everyone," has a heart attack, then one of our brightest students," yet another snort," unfortunately gets overrun by a car. And that is alright," sniggers," because it was accidents, but now, yet another has died." The principal looked grim now.

_**He's looking as if somebody survived...**_

I couldn't help it, I smiled.

"One of our students have been attacked, his name is, and soon, it will probably be was, June Harris."

My smile fell, and I think that we all felt a bit bad, I mean, who hadn't been mean to him? He had, after all, been gay. So, maybe that wasn't his fault, but...

"Yesterday," the principal started, again," he was attacked, because of his homosexuality."

Now, I imagine, everybody felt twice as bad as before. I think that I felt even worse. And now, our history teacher stood up, and replaced the principal.

"June Harris was a bright student, and we were glad to have him. Us teachers felt like that at least. Unfortunately, June Harris was bullied, by you. It's a lot of people's belief that homophobia disappeared at the turn of the century, but they're wrong. In fact, it's just like it used to be. Now, I'd like all of you to be careful about what you say, as to not offend anyone, or commit homophobia."

* * *

"Am I the only one feeling bad?" Gina asked us, at lunch.

_**You've already talked about it once, and now you're doing it again...**_

"No," Simon and I said at the same time, while John said "Yes."

"And why the hell aren't you feeling bad?" Gina asked.

"Because I never said anything mean to him, and, for that matter, did you?"

"Sort of," Gina said.

"Yes," Simon said. I nodded in agreement.

_**Feeling bad is so **_**you**_**...**_

* * *

"Hey," Mikhail said, opening the door.

"Hey," I replied. "Can we talk?"

"Yes."

* * *

We went to a park, and bought hotdogs. No, actually, Mikhail bought the biggest hotdog there was, while the lady who was manning the hotdog cart, looked at him strangely.

"I thought that it was gone," I told Mikhail.

"What, homophobia? What sort of rock have you been living under?" Mikhail said with a bitter laugh. "What are you gonna do about it, though?"

"Stop calling people gay, unless I have a reason to, like with you."

"What, you can't be sure that I am, can you?"

"Yes, I can. Saw you in action."

"Did you, honey?" he leaned into me, smiled and batted his eyelashes. "Did you think it pretty?"

"Yes, honey, I did," I said and smiled at him.

Then Mikhail put his hand around my waist.

For some reason I didn't like it. In fact, I felt bad.

_There was Mikhail, short, blonde and dressed in a uniform, and being held at gunpoint by another soldier. Several others in fact. Mikhail had his hands up, but a smirk on his face that made me surprised that the soldiers didn't run the other way._

_He raised his fists and went down on the soldier in front of him. Actually, he didn't use his fists to hit him, but he instead took his hands on the other soldiers' cheeks, on the face, and kissed him, on the mouth._

_He was shot in the head, and was dead. Mikhail, that is, was shot._

_One of the other soldiers said "Saumensch", which made the others laugh._

_In the carnage all around them._

"God." I said.

"Honey, you okay?" Mikhail asked, and looked concerned, but you could still tell that he really wasn't.

"You're dead," I said. That did make him concerned, so he led me to a bench and pushed me down, then sat beside me.

"Yes."

"You killed yourself," I said.

"No, I didn't, they shot me."

"But that was only because you wanted them too."

"They were still the ones who shot me."

I turned to him.

"Why the hell did you kiss him? Did you have a death wish?"

"Yes."

"But I don't get it," I said.

"No, you don't do you?"

"But could you explain it to me, then?"

"Calm down, I was the one who had to live through it, not you."

"That is not reason enough to not explain. Why the hell did you kiss him?"

"Because-"

"Couldn't help but hear you talk," a woman, out of the blue, said.

"Course you fuckin' could," I said.

"No," she said with a smile on her face."Anyway, I just wanted to say that when someone, kisses another someone, in this case you," she pointed at Mikhail,"and some other boy, it's because they think that it is enjoyable. There's no death involved."

"You wouldn't mind doing me the favor of walking away, would you?" Mikhail asked.

The woman huffed, and went on her merry way.

"Could you explain now?" I asked, sour.

"There was a law, so to say, well, actually, I think that it was. Basically, if you didn't go down fighting, they would kill your family, no, not really, but they wouldn't be nice, and I didn't want that seeing as I had ten siblings, and four uncles, all with wives, and they had a big number of children. They were all most likely starving, like the rest of the population, but I didn't want them captured, so I had to get killed, and decided that kissing one of them would be fun for me, and they would also hate me enough then to kill me," Mikhail explained.

"That's..." I trailed of.

"A very good explanation, I know."

"Honey," I dragged out the word.

"Yes?"

"That wasn't what I was going to say."

"It wasn't? Well, then, I don't agree if you say something else, honey. You don't happen to have any candy, or something?"

I dug out a chocolate bar.

"Could you give me the short version, and then you get the chocolate bar?"

"But I'm hungry!" he complained. I rolled my eyes. "Fine, the short version is that there was this law, that said if you were a coward your family would suffer for it, so I killed myself by making them hate me. Now can I get that chocolate bar?" I gave it to him, and he ate it in, like, one second.

We just sat there for some time, staring out into space, my head feeling like the inside of a drum.

"I need more food, I'm starving," Mikhail said.

"I'm not starving, but my head feels like a drum. I'm going home."

* * *

When I got home, I immediately headed for the bathroom, where Jamie was drowning matches.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Getting a painkiller."

"We have no killers in that box," Jimmie said, and gestured vaguely towards the cabinet.

"It's called a cabinet, and they're just called painkillers, you fuckin' idiot." I pushed him away from the sink with my hip, and he crossed his arms and glared at me, while I took a Tylenol for the headache.

"Has grandma said that you can eat that?" he asked suspiciously.

"No. Have you asked if you can kill the matches? For that matter, have you asked the matches what they feel about it?"

"I just don't want Joanie to burn up my toys," he said, then he pushed me from the sink, and glared at the matches. He picked one up, and snapped it, with some effort.

"Where the hell is she, then?" I asked.

"She's gotten a new friend," he said, sulking.

"So, you're not sucking each other off, anymore? Well, that's sad, for you mostly."

Then Jimmie's eyes started tearing up.

"Know what you should do now that you no more can be with Joanie all the time?" I asked, smiling and acting like a big brother.

"Be with you?" he asked with a mischievous grin.

"No. Be with mom, you'll love it."

"You suck," he said.

_**He detests you...**_the Source said gleefully.

**AN: Right, so i'm proud of this chapter, and here comes a long author's note. first off, the law that mikhail talks about is like this:**

Order number 270. I order that: 1) Those that remove their insignias... and surrender shall be seen as a evil deserter whose realitives shall be arrested as relatives to a oath-breaking and a traitor to the Soviet Union. Those deserters shall be shot at sight. 2) Those that gets surrounded shall fight until the last drop of blood...those that prefer to be taken shall be executed in the best way at hand and their families loose all support.

**quite mean, really. and the 'i', indicates stalin. saumesch is the german equivalent of bitch.  
**


	14. The Face

**AN: Right, so I hope that you like. And has anyone read the trilogy by Stieg Larsson? Well, I if you haven't, you really should, as it's great. Unfortunately, he died before the books were published, so he won't write anything else.**

**What I really like about the book is that pretty much everything happens in sweden, and that it's written by a swede, who's really good at coming up with weird scenarios, that are great. It reads a bit like a paper article, but it still pulls you in.**

**Right, so what I meant with that is 'read it!'.**

_It was dark all around me, and I was scared. If there was one thing that I didn't like, it was being scared._

_But then, there was light in the darkness. A flashlight. With a red handle. And very yellow light._

_I reached out, and took it. Then it went out, and it was yet again dark._

"_For god's sake, woman!" I growled. I had a hand, which was red, around her throat, and now I squeezed. Her eyes bulged out, and it looked so funny._

"_You killed another one, did you?" Mikhail asked._

"_I...I..."_

"Oh God," I breathed, as I opened my eyes.

I sort of expected to wake up in the Underworld, but everything was normal. I was in my room, my room was messy, and the only spot that you could sit on was still the bed. And no-one had bothered about making a path to the bed.

Everything was okay, I had nothing to worry about.

Really, I wasn't going to go around and kill people, making Mikhail so whatever about it.

_**But you will, won't you? That was a vision of the future, that's how you will end up... Just like your daddy...**_

Shut up.

My eyes were getting used to the dark, and now I could see even more details of my room.

Like the fact that my door was closed, something that I myself hadn't done. And it was raining outside, which could explain why it was still dark in my room, though the clock said that it was 10 am.

I lay down again, on the side, curled up, closed my eyes, and promptly fell asleep.

_I hated her, and I hated them, and I hurt, and I lost my temper._

_There was a woman, pregnant, her head one fire, everything on fire._

_I don't want to be burned alive._

"_I love you, which is why I'm giving you a new family." She had a very pretty smile._

"_You killed me," the woman who had burned before now stood there, leaning over my bed._

For the second time that day, I sat up, my eyes wide, after having a bad dream.

Aren't you going to say something.

_**Yes... I don't think that it's wise to go to sleep, again...**_

Great fuckin' advice.

"Where the hell are my matches?" I heard Joanie's wonderful, and loud, voice yell.

Oh god.

"I killed them," Jimmie said, and most likely stomped his foot on the floor.

I groaned, but was happy that I hadn't fallen asleep again.

"You bastard!" And now Joanie was using those lungs too. Both she and Jennifer had them, which I knew since I had known them both since they were in diapers. The horrors of being the oldest.

None of my siblings looked very nice, or were very nice, back then. Well, for Jennifer it's more like now. They had pink faces! Those faces became red. They were creepy, and Jennifer still is, because of the whole still being a baby bit. And Joanie, I saw now that I walked into their room, looked just like grandma when she got mad. And that was also scary.

"Hey, no need to fight," I said, trying to make them stop. It didn't work.

Joanie raised her fists, and I knew what she was gonna do.

Some time before this happened, maybe a year, I had taught Joanie to hit, because she wanted to learn. Now, I regretted that decision.

Jimmie, I hadn't taught how to hit, because he thought it mean, but now I could see that he regretted that he hadn't picked up on my offer.

Then Joanie hit. Jimmie fell like a brick dropped from the seventh floor, or something.

I picked Joanie up and threw her over my shoulder.

"Let me go!"

"You okay?" I asked Jimmie, worried, but there wasn't much I could do with Joanie over my shoulder, screaming and banging her fists on my back. It felt like a rain of rocks. "Grandma! Anyone!"

As expected, grandma, grandpa, dad and mom all came hurrying.

"What, are you doing?" grandma asked, when she saw me holding Joanie, and Joanie struggling to get free. Then she saw Jimmie laying on the floor, his face a bloody mess.

"Oh dear, what happened?" grandpa asked, came into Jimmie and Joanie's room, and checked Jimmie's face.

"Joanie punched Jimmie because he drowned her matches."

"Let me go!"

"It was a good punch," grandpa said to Joanie, then he picked Jimmie up, and deposited him on Joanie's bed, which was closest.

"Right, well, who taught her how to punch like that?"

"I though that it'd be fun, it's not my fault that she's so good at it."

"Let me go!"

_**She would be a very good banshee, don't you agree?**_

"Jimmie, you'll be fine," I told him, and carried Joanie out of the bedroom, to mom and dad's room, put her down, and closed the door. Then I slid down it, so that Joanie wouldn't be able to get out.

"Ben, that was serious. And what are you going to do about Joanie? Can't keep her locked inside forever, you know."

"Mom, I think that it would be better if I handled this," dad said. Grandma huffed, and walked away, fully expecting to be called back soon.

"Benjy, you don't teach your siblings to fight, okay, sonny?"

"Sure dad."

"Let me out!" Joanie yelled.

"I better talk to her," dad said.

"Sure."

_**You think that he will be pummeled...**_

Yes. Dad is great, but when it comes to this sort of thing, grandma and grandpa are better at dealing with it.

Dad opened the door, Joanie came flying out, but instead of pummeling dad, she pummeled me. Ran straight into my legs, and I fell down onto the floor, hitting my head.

The rest of the morning was a mess, and it included:

An ice pack for me.

An ice pack for Jimmie.

An ice pack for dad.

An ice pack for Joanie.

And grandma yelling, and mom scolding.

* * *

I decided to visit Bianca, since it rained here in Seattle, and I wanted to see what it looked like in California. Problem was, I was scrying, but I couldn't find her. And that was frustrating, and not in the good way like when a girl wears a push-up bra, or when Mik-

Long story short, it wasn't fun.

In the end, the Source told me that her mother used to live in San Francisco, so that's where I went, and then sensed for her.

Turns out, she lives in an apartment, in one of the better neighborhoods.

I knocked, and the door opened. Bianca was standing at the other side.

"Who is it?"

"It's just a friend, mom!" Bianca called back.

She led me to her room, which was a bed pushed to one corner, knives laying in another, and a mat on the floor, and of course, what the Source recognized as a grimoire.

She wanted to kick my ass. That's what she did.

* * *

Yet again, she threw me on the floor.

"Really, are you that big of a failure?" she asked.

"I'm not a fuckin' failure, I just haven't been trained as an assassin since the first damned day that I could walk!" I yelled.

"It's a family trade," she defended herself.

"I'm sure it is, but haven't you heard that you always have a choice?"

"It's always good to know how to defend yourself," she said, then she hit me in the face, nearly breaking my nose.

"That fuckin' hurt," I complained.

"I'm sure it did, why the hell did you think that I hit you?"

"Because you love me?" I asked.

Bianca rolled her eyes, but her face broke into a smile.

Then I had enough of it, and left. Seeing Bianca's mom gave me a vision.

_Bianca's mom opened the door. There was something wrong, she looked younger. Two women wanted to get in._

"_Phoenix."_

_She locked the door, and the women didn't notice._

_A wrist with a birthmark._

_Bianca's mom threw an energyball, then the dark haired of the women blew her up. Strangely enough there was no blood on the walls._

_Like what I can do._

_The women hurried to open the door, and in there was a little girl. The woman reformed in there, picked the girl up and they disappeared into nothing, like melted into the wall._

_The woman's face stared at me, and then smiled. It was creepy._

* * *

"Cole, I've been seeing this woman."

Cole raised one eyebrow, and just looked at me.

"Shouldn't you be seeing a girl?"

"Not like that, more like a woman's face, the face of a woman who I think wants to kill me. I'm also fairly sure that I killed her by killing me, but I could be wrong."

"Okay." Cole sat there, quiet. "Are you sure that she wants to kill you? Do you know ho she is?"

"Well, the Source says that she's the Seer, but how the hell can I be dead!"

Cole's desk exploded, but stopped mid-explosion, and my jacket was one fire, which also died out.

"I think that that's how you're dead," Cole said, amused.

"I didn't ask how I died, I know that already, I'm just wondering why the hell I'm still walking around?"

"How do you know that you were the one dying?" Cole asked, calmly.

"Well, she blamed me."

"And you believe her? I made that mistake once, and where am I now?"

"Not dead, I didn't know what you were before."

"I had a wife. She was beautiful, gorgeous."

"And now she's dead?"

"No, still alive."

_**What he's trying to say is that he lost the love of his life, he just don't know how to say it...**_

"That is very sad, but what does it have to do with me?"

"She'll trick you, and then you'll be dead. Don't trust her, Ben, that's stupid."

we continued to talk, and that's to say that cole repeated 'don't trust her' so many times that it felt like my head was going to explode, and her head was there and then not.

In the end, I said that I had to go home because pf a migraine that hurt like hell.

* * *

I shimmered away, and in the middle of it all, I got pushed. And, okay, I'm quite comfortable with shimmering, but any sudden movements that I'd make, have me convinced that I'll end up in some poor country in Africa, where they won't understand what the hell I'm saying!

And that is just as scary as Joanie looking like grandma.

When I finally stopped shimmering, since I don't know a better way of putting it, that's what I'm saying, I fell to the ground, because of the push in the middle of the shimmer.

"Fuckin' hell, that damn well hurt," I groaned, pushing myself up with the help of my elbows, and then I staggered a bit, trying to regain my balance.

My head hurts.

_**Going to solve that with yet another Tylenol? You're getting addicted...**_

"But it fuckin' hurts," I told him.

"Who are you?"a guy asked, and I looked straight forward, where there was two guys. A short, skinny and brown-haired one, and a blonde, more stocky guy. They had a blue shield surrounding them, like a water-bubble, but I didn't think that that was what it was.

"I'm...Santa."

"Cole!" a voice yelled from far away.

What's he doing here?

_**Warning the sisters, I presume...**_

**AN: I might have overused the linethingie, but if I have, tell me. Like, give a review.**

**And I'm thinking about doing the next chapter in Cole's POV, like Gina's Week, and then I'm thinking of just doing a short drabble with his thoughts, and have Ben tell the other stuff, but I don't know, and if anyone have an opinion, give me a review and say what you think.**


	15. Ladies My Name Is Cole Turner

**AN: Hey, the next chapter is nearly finished, I ust have to write it into the computer and edit, so it should be up sometime this weekend.**

Belthazor had a plan, to kill the Charmed Ones while one of them was missing.

I had a feeling that the plan was going to fail, since sooner or later, there would be a crisis that she had to come back for. Probably the Belthazor crisis.

After a lot of planning, and staking out, and generally preparing, we finally met them. Prue, the oldest sister, and Phoebe, the youngest sister.

I introduced myself: "Ladies, my name is Cole Turner, and I'm the Assistant District Attorney assigned to this case. So I was wondering if any of you saw what happened here."

Belthazor was very proud of himself for delivering that line without killing them, but then again, that was Belthazor's stock in trade, pretending to be human.

"I did," Phoebe had said, and raised her arm, like you used to do in school. She actually was in school at the time, so it wasn't that odd that she did that, I am rather handsome in human form, if I say so myself.

* * *

Chris was sitting in the living room in the Halliwell manor, playing some new game that said _pip_ and _argh, you killed me_. He seemed to like it.

Wyatt was also sitting on the couch, but instead of playing a game, he watched TV. Re-runs of a show called My Name Is Earl. He sniggered a lot, so I assumed he liked it.

Then Piper walked into the living room, grabbing the remote and shutting of the TV.

"Mom!" Wyatt protested. Chris sniggered.

Having been watching them for so long, I am quite sure that I can predict what happens next (Piper yelling at them to go out and do something), but it was still interesting, so imagine my annoyance at suddenly disappearing, and finding myself in the Tribunal.

I had heard about the Tribunal from a lot of my old friends, though they were just rumors. Of course, some had been there for real, and gotten out of it alive. And I'm not saying that because I think that the Tribunal is a slaughterhouse, but because there usually is trials against demons doing things that are awful, even by demonic standard.

My impression of the Tribunal is that it is a feat of magic, and, look at that, I don't have an opponent.

In fact, the only one here other than me, is the floating faces.

"Hello," I said. "What, exactly, am I here for?" I asked, thinking it best to go straight to the point.

"You are here for the matter of who is going to take care of Benjamin, your son."

The words puzzle me. And it's not because I don't have a son, it's because the son that I should have had had life been perfect, is dead. Because of the Seer. Or, because of his own temper.

"I thought that he was dead," I said slowly.

"He is not, and he needs a guardian, who can teach him about magic."

"Isn't that a whitelighter's job? It might have escaped your notice, but I'm not one."

Cole, that was too cheeky, I berate myself.

"That is mostly true, however, Benjamin has a demonic heritage that I would like to see honored," one of the demonic members of the Tribunal said.

Then it escalated to a, quite frankly, childish fight between them, about Benjamin.

In the end, they decided that I would be his guardian, or mentor, and tell him about both worlds. Both the evil and the good.

I also managed to get something for the bother: a corporeal body, some of my own powers (mainly those that could save Benjamin's life), and a job.

* * *

I decide to warn the sisters, since that is at least what they deserve. Unless the Elders have somehow found out, which, given their general attitude, is highly unlikely. Why would they try to find something out from their high horse? Especially something that was going on in the Underworld, and so far had only affected demons. Because demons dying of causes unknown is good in their book.

I transport, it looks sparkly, to the Manor, specifically, the kitchen.

I guess that I should have expected the scene that I see: Piper cooking. I've never met a woman, or man, for that matter, with better cooking skills.

"Piper," I said, softly.

Piper jumps into the air, goes pale, and then turns around.

"Cole," she says softly. "Uhm, am I dead?"

"Well, I don't see a body," I said.

"No, neither do I."

"How are you?"

"I'm fine, but then, you must already know that. Cole, why the hell aren't you in limbo?" Piper asked, going straight to the point.

"I'm not, simple as that," I said, deciding to not go into the extremely long story that includes the Tribunal, and that takes too long to explain. Though, by Elder standards, the trial with the Tribunal didn't take too long, only a day, and the decision: half a day.

Wonderful, isn't it, how fast things are done?

"And how long haven't you been there then?"

"Some time. You know, Piper, there's a reason that I'm here."

"You're going to try and kill us again?" Piper said, disbelief clear in her voice.

"I'm not that predictable," I said lightly. "I'm here to warn you."

"Just me? What, is another demon going to try and kill Wyatt? That's not news, that's a daily occurrence."

Over the years, there has been so many attacks on Wyatt, that not even Piper, who is a very over-protective mother, didn't really care that much about it.

"No, that's not it," I said, and then I had intended to drop the bomb, unfortunately for me, Paige then walked into the kitchen, and yelled:"Cole!"

"Paige! I've missed you!" I exclaimed, sarcastic.

"They're going to kill me!" Ben yelled, from above. What the hell is he doing here?

"Don't kill them!" I called back. He had more sense than that, didn't he? I hope so.

"What, are you planning?"Paige asked, ignoring what was happening upstairs.

"Nothing," I said.

"Mom!" Chris now called from above, then he orbed downstairs, into the kitchen. "They are in a staring contest, at least Wyatt is, I think that the other guy is talking with himself, and can you come up now?" This was all said very fast, and I had trouble keeping up. "Oh, hello. I'm Chris."

"Cole, nice meeting you."

"Who's up there?" Paige asks, and I'm surprised that they don't spring into action. Old age must be to blame.

"Ben, a teenager. He's harmless," if he wants to, I ended the sentence.

"That's it, I'm going up," Paige said and orbed upstairs, Chris then offering his arm to his mother, and following suit. I transported myself upstairs, too.

There, Ben stood near the entrance, arms crossed, and reminded me a lot of my mother when she was very annoyed and was just about to kill/destroy the thing annoying her. For the first time since I met Ben, I was actually scared of him, and I hadn't been before. Who would, after all, be scared of an impulsive teenager?

Piper, Paige, Chris and Wyatt stood near the Book of Shadows, Wyatt glaring at Ben.

"Am I really in San Francisco?" Ben asked me.

"You don't know where you are?" Piper asked.

"It's not my fault, is it? Besides, I just wasn't really sure. Do you always know exactly where you are?"

"Right, I don't care about that. Anyway, Wyatt, this is Cole, he's tried to kill us a number of times, and the guy's name is Ben," Piper said.

"Why are you here?" Wyatt asked, glaring at both Ben and I.

"I'm here to warn you."

"Of what?" Paige asked.

"Well, most likely the thing with Him, right?" Ben said. I was quite surprised at the amount of tact he showed that he had. Or it could be the Source helping him. It was most likely the latter.

"Yes, that's it."

"What, the Source is back again?" Piper asked me, and, of course, Ben broke into a fit of giggles... then full blown laughter.

"What's the matter with him?" Wyatt asked.

"Not that much, actually," I said.

Currently, Ben was gasping for breath.

"So, I take it that it's not the Source that you are trying to warn us from?" Paige asked.

"But, why would he warn us from the Source? He's dead," Wyatt, oh so brightly, pointed out. This only led to Ben laughing even harder.

"Are you okay?" Chris asked Ben, as he had now gone to a rather worrying shade of purple.

"I'm sure that he'll be fine," I said. "Anyway, what I came here to warn you about is the Titans."

"We killed them Cole, didn't you know that?" Piper asked, and if thw roding appeared strange to Paige, she didn't comment on it.

"I do remember that, problem is, they're returning."

"What?" Paige asked.

"He said that the Titans are coming back, and, if you want to know more, you'll give me a glass of water," Ben said, and a glass of water flamed to his hand, and he just managed to catch it before it fell to the ground.

"You said he was harmless!" Piper accused.

"Don't be silly, nobody's completely harmless," Ben said, took a pill from his pocket and swallowed it with water. At Piper's and Paige's accusing stares, he said: "It was just Tylenol, since my head is trying to explode, which, for your information, really hurts."

"Probably Cole's fault," Paige said.

"Yeah," Ben said. I glared at him, and he just shrugged.

"Anyway, who's saying that the Titans are coming back?" Piper asked.

"I am. Oh, and do you know a blonde woman, quite confident?" Ben asked.

"Billie," Paige said. "What, do you know where she is?" The worry was very evident on Paige's face.

"Dead. Killed, by the Titans."

"No, you're lying."

"Well, I'm not. It was something about a time demon, but it wasn't him, it was a Titan," Ben said, then, seemingly deep in thought, added: "Cronus, it might be."

"Yeah, so what? Why weren't you the one who killed Billie, and then puts the blame on someone else?" Wyatt asked.

"I agree," Chris said.

"I am not lying, because I am not a liar. Besides, why would I kill anyone?"

"You know Cole," Paige said, as if that was a motive for murder. Which, in their book, it probably was.

"Well, that's not by choice."

"Cole, are you stalking him?" Paige asked.

"Why would I be stalking him?"

"Because he looks like you," Chris said.

"I do not look like him," Ben protested, though I have to say, Chris is right. He looks a lot like me. He looked even more like me before he dyed his hair.

"Paige, that theory was just silly, and, honey, you do look like Cole," Piper said.

"Yeah, sure," Ben said, sarcasm very apparent, then, to his and everybody elses' shock, going up in shadows.

**AN: So, what did you think? The first version was actually better in some places, but in this the conversation is a lot better. Please review.**


	16. The Memories

**AN: To ( ): Thanks so much for the review, I appreciate it. Yes, now he has met the Halliwells, and been kidnapped. And now, the Halliwells will play a big part in the whole of the story.**

Now, it's all black, and it's dark, and before it was bright and...

I groggily opened my eyes, and wondered where the hell I was. I blinked. The ceiling was black. And it wasn't black nothing, but palpable black. The next logical step was to look around me, but I couldn't move my head. I decided to go out on a limb and called: "Hello?"

"And our savior," this was said sarcastically and it seriously reminded me of the Doctor in Star Trek, Voyager, "is awake!"

A face appeared above mine, and I knew that face.

"You're dead!" I accused him.

"And you, stole, my, book," he accused straight back at me. "But that's okay," he said generously,"because I still have the most important book," he said, reaching his hand out of my sight and brought back a quite thin, leather bound book. "It used to be a scroll, but I like books better, so I, um, turned it into a book." He looked nervously at me.

"Um, that's great," I said.

"Perfect! I also took the liberty to kill your parents, and, your, uh, well, family, so that you won't have any emotional bonds to them. That's okay, right?" he asked.

I was speechless.

"You are lying," I told him, slowly.

"What? No," he said, dragging out the 'no' more than necessary. "But what am I thinking about, talking to _you_ that way? Silly me."

He then bunched up the hem of my shirt, and put it into my mouth.

_**Aren't you going to try and free yourself?**_

Well, well, I , I, he just said that my family is dead!

_**I'm sure that they are of good health...**_

Yes, because never talking is healthy.

_**Oh, you mean them? Yeah, they're probably dead...**_

What?

"Sorry it took so long, this book doesn't have an index and it's written with millimeter letters." I tried saying that he only had to untie me, and not do it, but it came out sounding garbled thanks to the cloth in my mouth.

"What? Are you suggesting that I create an index? Are you an imbecile? Oh, how silly of me, of course you are," the man said. "Oh, and to make it less traumatic for you, I will tell you what this ritual entail."

I tried to tell him to just do it, since I wanted to get home as soon as possible to see whether he was lying or not. Thankfully, he seemed to get what I was trying to convey with grunts and eye-rolling.

***chant**

Black smoke, or mist, rose from the floor, the ceiling, and probably the walls, but since I couldn't see them, I wasn't entirely sure.

For some reason, the Source was terrified. I was weirded out.

_**Liar!**_

More black smoke, or mist, appeared in the air, until it formed a person.

***chant**

There came even more smoke, or mist, and then I recognised him. I think that I did, at least. That androgynous face.

***chant**

The man made out of smoke, or mist, dove into me, and i'm sure that I would have screamed, had I been able to.

As it was, the source performed those duties most excellently. The last thing I saw, before I passed out, was the man nervoulsy chewing on his fingernails, while sweating. I never thought it possible to glisten without a lamp overhead, but he managed with few, really crappy candles.

* * *

_I wasn't very old, really, I was eight, Simon was my best friend, and mom was talking. She kept saying 'oh', and I didn't understand why. _

"_Mom?" I had asked, tentatively._

"_Oh, Benjy," she had answered, and I still don't get why I let her call me that. It's so fuckin' silly, really, fuckin' silly, as a matter of fact._

_She never answered, instead she kept on muttering, and I decided to sit on the balcony; we lived in an apartment back then._

_I was till so short, so fuckin' short, that I could sit on a chair and swing my legs. I think that I sat there for hours, and even though I, when the 'ohs' became too loud,had slammed the door shut, I could still hear the 'ohs'._

_Finally though, I could hear the door, the one that led out and in of the apartment, opened and shut._

_I jumped of the chair (I know that I did it, but now, for the life of me, I can't figure out how I did it), opened the balcony door, and ran to dad, hugging his legs._

"_Dad, mom's been saying 'oh' all day, what does it mean?"_

"_I don't know Benjy, _your_ guess is as good as mine."_

_That was back in the olden days, even though I didn't remember the orphanage or anything, they were trying to make me feel as if they were family, not really realizing, how fuckin' stupid they were behaving._

"_Oh, it's so horrible, or wonderful, um, oh," mom said, hugging dad._

"_I'm sure it's wonderful," dad had said, and made this face at me that meant 'women, what can you do?' He always did that, at least five times a day, and that was on a day when he spent most of the day at work._

"_Well come on, tell us," dad had said._

"_Oh, I, oh dear, well, I, oh, I oh, Ben, I, oh, um, oh, eh, would, um, oh, I'm pregnant!" she had yelled, after the longest, and most useless, sentence in history._

_How could _anyone_ be so fuckin' annoying? I know that I shouldn't say that, if she's actually dead, but she can't be, she just can't._

* * *

_As usual, the perfect solution to the gigantic problem was easy. It was so easy. Problem was, I suddenly found myself fearing death. Yes, those two facts are connected and they have nothing to do with a revolution, things that I detest. I have nothing against freedom, or the act itself, I participated in one myself, but all the death of civilians, and demons that gets happy and then start killing each other, pretty much spells trouble. Anyway, the problem had nothing to do with stopping a revolution. Though it sort of did._

_I quite fancied the idea of _me, _stopping a revolution (a sort of one), when I normally don't care, since caring always makes things difficult._

"_Why do you have to stop a revolution?" my friend, and partner in the Death Business, asked._

"_Because it's not going to be a pretty revolution," I explained._

"_They don't tend to be pretty, Hades, what sort of dream world have you been living in your whole life?"_

"_The Titans are coming back, Hel, and that's bad, you just wasn't there to see it." _

"_Well, okay, I can still see when a plan is true madness! Why did you even tell me? You are going to sit in that chair until you rot, because I am not going to let you go, you utter idiot!" she screamed, and that was something that she was good at. She was also good at making you weak in the knees, whether of fright or beauty, that's a whole different matter._

"_Hel, please," I pleaded._

"_Please what? Please kill me? Or please, let me rot away in this chair for your own, fucking good?"_

_I might have done a few miscalculations, telling Hel. We had been friends for centuries, and yet I hadn't realized that this was how she would react._

_Though, after yelling at me for about an hour, she had to get something to drink, since all that yelling was a bit of a strain even on her throat, a throat that was practically legend all by itself, and had nothing to with Hel._

_While she was away, and stupidly had not set anyone to the task of watching me, I took to the shadows (literally, and it's not as hard as it sounds), to find my brother._

_I finally did, at the bottom of the sea, which in itself isn't that weird, considering he is known as an ocean god._

_I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, glad that Poseidon's palace, at least, had air. Of course, Poseidon also had a throne, which I was standing in front of._

_I was slightly (very) vexed that he didn't bother getting a chair for me, or treat me like an equal._

"_What do you want?" Poseidon asked me, lounging on his throne and still looking quite young, unlike me who had wrinkles, and gray hair, but that did make me look rather dignified._

"_I want to die," I said, quickly._

_Poseidon's reaction was hilarious, his chin nearly falling to the floor, making him look like a fish, and his eyebrows rose to the ceiling._

"_You, you, what?" _

_Oh, damn it, he reacted the same way that Hel reacted._

"_I'll kill you, sure, I just want to know why? I mean, you know what happens when you die, and your life doesn't suck that much, right?" There was a sort of hopeful look on his face, saying 'I hope your life sucks, or that you're really stupid, or that you're crazy, or something else really bad'. I've never seen a more expressive face in my long life. "Oh, is it Circe?"_

_Circe was my old flame, so to speak. We had an affair years ago, and it resulted in a child. I think that he was cursed a few years ago, or maybe decades, or even centuries, but he'll come back. Fear always does. We named him Barbas, in the hope of him becoming a barber, but that never happened._

"_No, father is coming back." His face scrunched up in confusion, making him look closer to his age._

"_What does that have to do with you being suicidal? It won't solve anything."_

"_It will, you'll just have to trust me."_

"_Bah! Trust you? Well, you've got a point there, I suppose. After Zeus, you were the best at fighting, sooooo..." I've never, in my long life, heard anyone drag out the word 'so' so much. Well, Poseidon always was one for doing the impossible._

_In the end, he did kill me, after I had told him the plan, with a few tweaks. He doesn't have to know all the details, does he?_

_He doesn't have to know about the prophesied child, or the fact that his way of killing me will leave the prophesied child deadly afraid of water._

**AN: Right, so I hoped that the readers of this story liked this chapter, Hades was quitefun to write. I'm thinking of doing a one-shot with him, Circe, Hel and Penny. Does that interest anyone?**

**Anyway, please review.**


	17. The Consequences

**AN: I was struggling with writing this, so in the end, it became a bit like the second to last chapter in another story that I have written, Expectations, and it's completely different from the other stuff in this story. However, I am happy with it, just thought that I would warn you.**

They are not dead, because they can't be dead, but I know that they are dead, but they can't be!

Well, I'm not dead anymore, so that's good, but they can't be dead.

Well, of course they're not dead, because, I'll go back in time and stop them. I'm a god. Gods can turn back time.

Father can turn back time.

But I have to be able to, because they can't be dead, because if they are, then, then, I won't be able to laugh at grandma's cooking anymore.

They are not dead!

I can turn back time. And if I can't, then... They can't be dead! They are not dead, they can't be dead, because they are my family, and I love them.

They are not dead.

I'll turn back time for them.

In fact, I'll do it right now. Yeah. And then they won't be dead, because they simply can't be.

My family, is not dead, because I'll turn back time.

Yeah. I will.

And no one can stop me, because I'm a god. And those who defy gods...

I'm going to turn back time.

* * *

There was a Sandman, people believed. They believed wrong. There were several Sandmen, otherwise, not everybody (everybody that slept: most of Erath's population) would be able to dream. They needed several Sandmen to do the job.

Right now, there was a Sandman walking through a doomed house. This was a Sandman who liked irony.

Their house was going to burn up, they were going to dream about fire. A very pyromaniac family, this. Really, they should have known that this was coming. Especially the oldest boy.

Though he (the oldest boy) didn't, and the Sandman was happy about that. Then he could warn them, and when they died, they would appreciate his work. The irony.

Twins. The Sandman liked twins. Sometimes, he could make them dream the same dream. It took a lot of practice, and he had actually only succeeded twice, but he would try again.

Who to start with? He carefully considered his options. Boys' dream tended to be more colorful, action filled, but girls' dreams could be quite weird sometimes.

He would start with the girl, she seemed more interesting.

_I have to run faster, I have to. I have to catch him, then he will die._

_Through green forests, deserted deserts, and rainbow lands._

"_You are dead!"_

"_No," Jimmie cried, his eyes red and screaming pathiness. I like that word._

_I lit a match, then threw it at Jimmie._

_I laughed, like one of the bad guys on TV. Like that woman who burned up a house._

"_I killed Jimmie! I killed Sirius Black!"_

_The mom looked so pained._

"_I killed Sirius Black. Ha ha!"_

Interesting, the Sandman thought. He hadn't seen that dream in a while, and he had really missed it.

He wondered what the brother, Jimmie, had to offer. Most likely not as fun as the girl's.

_I ran, I ran, I ran, I ran, I ran, I fell, and I fell so far._

_When I landed, I hurt my knee._

_Then Grandma was there to take care of it. It felt a lot better._

_In the garden, there was a tree. I hated it. I always told it that I was _this _close to destroying it, but it never listened._

_But I had a match now. This was going to change. I lit the match. Joanie was playing in the tree. I was going to light the tree up anyway. I was _this _close to destroying her too, she had gotten a new friend._

_I put the tree on fire._

_Then I cried, because I didn't have anyone to share a room with._

That, the Sandman decided, was one of the weird dreams. One of those that scared you a bit. One of those that made you wonder. One of those that made you think that underneath the non-threatening facade, there was a murderer.

Married, the man sleeping like a mess, and the woman like a statue. This would be fun.

The man:

_It hurt like hell, and damn it, he should have expected that. Putting your hand on the stove, how stupid could you be?_

_Though it proved his theory._

_Now all he had to do was to put a piece of paper in the oven, and the house burnt up._

_I looked at the flames, and they were beautiful._

"_Kurt, you did fine," Elise, my wife, said, and hugged his shoulders. She looked young again, like she had when they married. "You burnt down our house, and you know how much I hate it."_

_She kissed me._

That was one happy dream, the Sandman thought. A typical example of a man marrying for his wife's looks.

And the rigid way of sleeping that the woman had must mean fun.

_Smoking. The smoke entering my mouth, going through my lungs, and out through my mouth in artistic O's._

_I was good at this._

_All the men in the street stopped to stare at me. Must be this dress. Maybe I should burn it. Then they could see _me_._

_I laughed. Kurt's face in the building was just too laughable._

The Sandman smiled. That was just too typical.

The two of them, probably the twins' parents, slept cuddled together. Had he been more soft heartened, he would have thought them cute, but with the way he was, he was speculating about their dreams. And the scenarios he came up with were interesting. He decided to start with the man.

_How could I forget my pants? And shirt? And boxers?_

_And now they were laughing at me. Oh cookie. I started munching on my cookie, and tried to-_

Boring. Why did he have to be boring? Couldn't he have been more interesting, like the Sandman thought that he was. Turned out that he could be wrong, and the Sandman, this one, tended to be wrong. The others were better at this than him, for some reason.

What about the woman then? Was he wrong about her too? There was only one way to find out.

_The house burned. The flames danced._

_I woke up. It was a nightmare, just a nightmare, I told myself. Any minute now, he would start talking. When he didn't, I looked next to me. He wasn't there._

_No. this is not happening. Can't be. Won't be._

_I woke up. My lower body was on fire, but that didn't matter. The flames were so pretty._

Not exactly what the Sandman had thought, but certainly odd.

This family, with its' obsession of fire. He loved them already.

The son, Benjamin. The Sandman had heard about him. Everybody had. And _he _was going to see his dream. And knowing the family that Benjamin had been raised in, it was probably fire-related.

_I played in the lava, laughing. This was better than water, and you didn't risk drowning._

_I was drowning, falling through the water like a stone. I couldn't breath, I needed fire, if I started a fire, I would get out, I knew I would._

The Sandman was disappointed, he had expected something more exciting. Oh well, he would have to fix that some day, because right now, he had more pressing matters to go to. Like that orphanage. He laughed at the thought of it.

* * *

One of the firemen had wrapped me in a blanket and forced me to sit down on a firetruck. I had even gotten a cup of tea.

I was crying, I knew that I had to be. Otherwise I wouldn't be feeling as though it was raining.

"Hello," Cole said and sat down next to me on the firetruck. "Your house burnt down."

"And you killed people," I said, then realized _what _I had said. "Though I didn't burn it down.

"Are you sure about that? It could have been an accident."

"Cole. Whatever faults I may have, I'd know if I burned a house down. They're dead. It's all my fault. I stopped it, I thought that I had, but I didn't."

"But you said that you didn't burn the house down, Ben. I don't see how this is your fault."

"But, if I hadn't been _me_, it wouldn't have happened."

* * *

There was an interrogation. I didn't like it.

"How come you weren't in the house?"

"I was, I just got out."

"But you couldn't be bothered to take someone with you?"

"I'm sorry, are you accusing him?" Cole had asked.

"Not at all, I'm merely questioning him."

"Then maybe you should re-phrase, as to not get sued."

"This is standard procedure. How do you think that the fire started?" to me.

"I, I don't know."

"Is anyone in your family a pyromaniac?"

"No," I had answered, though it was a lie. I was one, Joanie was one, and even Jennifer could have become one.

"Are you sure? Because according to your neighbor, you and your sister, once set fire to a trash-can."

"Which sister?"

"Jenny."

"I don't, sorry, didn't, have a sister named jenny."

"Maybe you should continue asking your questions when you have gotten your facts straight?" Cole interfered again, and the interrogator went away.

**AN: I hope that it's not too bad. And, I will try to get back to regular updating. It's been really bad with that since, about, fifteen chapters ago.**


	18. The Dream

**AN: Hey, so, sort of regular, right? Anyway, school's started. Every other Tuesday my day ends at ten past one pm.**

**Thanks to Ruon Jian for the really nice review, which I've already said, but I'm saying it again.**

**Next chapter is half-written, so it should be up soon, maybe on the weekend.**

"You!" I called. I was in his lair, his really typical lair. A cave. With dark walls, dark ceiling, a throne and candles. It reminded me of Hades's throne room. "Kronos, I know you're here!"

"You do," he said, appearing in front of me. He reminded me of Arnold Schwarzenegger, though with a bit less muscles and a belly.

"Yes, of course I do. I'm the hero, I know where the villain is. It's written into the Sacred Scrolls of Heroism and Villainism."

"That is true."

"It's also written into the Sacred Scrolls of Heroism and Villainism that you have to tell me your plans."

"They're simple. I want to take over the world!" he yelled in a dark voice that he didn't have before, and lightning lit up behind him. "Good effects, right?"

"Yeah, though now I have to kill you." I brandished my sword, and skewered his head.

"You can come out now!" I called to Mikhail.

"Thank you," Mikhail said, walking towards me without his shirt on, "thank you so much for saving the Underworld from his terrorism." He kissed me. I kissed him back. Then he burned up.

"You can't kill me that easily. Also part of the Sacred Scrolls of Heroism and Villainism," Kronos said. "Or maybe it was you who killed him."

"No, I didn't. Because what you just said are also part of the Sacred Scrolls of Heroism and Villainism. I don't believe you."

"Oh, really? You should."

"You're following the script," I said with disdain. "Can't you use your imagination?"

"Well, it's a bit difficult when your head doesn't connect with your body. You get a bit detached," he said and then laughed at his oh-so-clever pun. Though it was quite good, not that I was gonna laugh at his jokes, I was going to be serious, the Sacred Scrolls of Heroism and Villainism says so.

"I suppose that that's true. You don't mind if I burn your body, do you?"

"Of course not. That's what you do, and I'm not going to stop you. Would be stupid."

"Yeah, and you're not," I said, while burning his body. "...sane, you're stupid."

Now, all that was left in this cave was a throne, candles and shadows.

"Hello, Ben," Cole said, and walked out of the shadows.

"Oh, I know this one. You're the real villain, right? The one who is behind the whole thing?"

"I am behind you," Cole said, and put his hands into his pockets, bouncing up and down with a maniacal smile on his face. "It's a funny story, actually. It started normally, with a mission." He popped the 'n'.

"That's amazing, it really is. However, I have a sword. And you saw what I did to the other guy, Obnoxious is his name."

"Is it? Or is it yours? Maybe he was right, you know. Murderer! I've always wanted to say that."

"I'm not a murderer, Cole, I'm a hero. I killed the bad guy. Killing the bad guy is good."

"I didn't mean him, Ben. Why would I talk about him, he's dead."

"Well, then, why are you accusing me of being a murderer?"

"Because you are, and murderers get punished. The dead don't-"

"Yeah, they do! I've created punishments for them, it's just that I haven't told anyone."

"Are you going to kill me, Hades? Like you made your servant kill Ben's family? Maybe you're the murderer, and not him."

Cole went up in flames then, though he laughed the whole time, and I had no idea why.

"Shouldn't you?" a voice asked me. I turned around, and there stood a black woman with a shawl and an evil expression on her face.

"Know why? Well, I suppose, but that's not important. It is not important, because it did not happen."

"What didn't happen? You? Well, you did, and I should know!"

The edges of her body lit up, and she disappeared.

I gripped my sword. My sword was going to protect me, it had to. Didn't matter that I was frightened, a hero's sword never abandon the hero.

Well, all I have to do now is to leave, and take several deep breaths, and try really hard not to hyperventilate, because then I wouldn't be a hero anymore, I would just be a frightened teenager. And I'm not a frightened teenager, I'm a hero.

I turned against the only way out, only to see it disappear.

"Kronos? Cole? What are you doing, you're dead!"

"Ben, come on, let's burn through the stone!" Joanie called to me, and I turned around again and saw her and Jamie.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, relieved. They'd save me. The hero's siblings all have super powers, so, then, Joanie and Jamie must have too.

"We're helping you, even though you didn't help us," Jimmie said. "You should have though, but you didn't, 'cause you're mean like Joanie."

"I am not mean!" Joanie called as a battle cry, and pounced on Jimmie. As soon as her hands were wrapped around his neck, they were engulfed in flames, and left were charred bodies.

"Where are you? You have to have a body, or I can't kill you!" I yelled as a warning to the villain, whoever that was.

"Kill?" mom asked, and I turned around, yet again.

"Yeah, Benjy, isn't that a bit too much, if you think about all the people that you already have killed?"

"What the hell are everybody talking about? I've killed Kronos, Cole just disappeared of his own accord, and it's not my fault that Joanie and Jimmie decided to fight."

Mom opened her mouth, and let out a terrible scream as both she and dad also turned into charred bodies.

"You could have done something to prevent it," grandma's disapproving voice said, and I turned around (seems to be a theme) to see her and grandpa.

"Though the time that you killed all those people, that was your fault," grandpa said.

"What people?" I asked, tired of all this accusing when I hadn't killed anyone.

Though they didn't answer my question, since they also burned up.

"What the hell is going on!"

"Oh, nothing much, just some killing committed by you," Cole said, and looked curiously down at my grandparents bodies. He then disappeared again.

Someone kicked me in the back, and I fell onto my stomach. I groaned, and managed to turn so I lay on my back.

"Hey. Are you also going to accuse me of murder?" I asked Bianca.

"Why would I do that? You just lost your temper, that's all. Besides, you killed a seer, how cool isn't that?"

"Are you sick?"

"What? No, I'm healthy and fit, unlike you. You look even more sick than last time I saw you, are you eating properly? I don't think you are, might have something to do with your family's death."

"What are you talking about?"

Then Bianca gasped, and looked down. Sticking out of her stomach was a piece of wood, and suddenly she didn't look like the Bianca that I knew, she looked like an older, more mature and sexier version. She collapsed.

"I never thought that she would die like this, you know?" a blonde man dressed entirely in black, and somehow managed to remind me about the blonde kid in the attic, said.

I tried to sit up, but I couldn't

"I always hoped, and that's different than thinking, that Chris would kill her. It was sort of disappointing when he didn't," the man said, now transparent. "You know what I think would do you good?" he asked, then disappeared completely.

"Need help?" the older of the women in the attic asked, and then pulled me up.

"You've certainly grown," she said.

"I haven't," I said.

"Of course you have, you used to be a baby in Phoebe's stomach, and look at you now. You look like both Cole and Phoebe, you're certainly their son."

"What? Who the hell is Phoebe?"

"Hm?" she said. She was then replaced by the younger from the attic, and the hotter.

"I hate you," she said, and then punched me. I flew backwards, into the wall. What the hell is wrong?

First I sever Kronos head, then Mikhail gets killed, then I kill Kronos, and then even more weird things happen. My entire family is dead.

"No," I said softly.

"No, what? No, I'm not sorry for pushing auntie out the window?"

"No, my family isn't dead."

"Of course we're not, Halliwells can't die."

"No!" I yelled, and sat straight up in bed.

It was a dream!

I have not kissed Mikhail, I did not kill Kronos, and my family isn't dead.

_**Then where are you?**_

What do you mean?

_**Look around...**_

This is not my room.

I pulled the sheet of my legs, and stood up. That's not my bed.

"Ben?" Cole opened the door, and peeked in.

"What, where, oh," I said, as I suddenly remembered where I was (in my new bedroom in Cole's penthouse), and why (my family is dead).

"You yelled," he said. "Nightmare?"

"Yeah, yeah, I, I don't remember, really," I said. All I remembered was kissing Mikhail, and I didn't want to tell Cole that. "I'll just go back to sleep."

"Do you want to be home today?" Cole asked.

"Home?"

"Yeah, school starts soon for you, do you want to go?"

"To school?" Cole just _looked _at me. "No."

"Then, unless you want to go to the Manor, you'll be alone for the day, is that okay with you?"

"Yeah, it is," I said, and Cole left.

_**Can we go to the Underworld?**_

I yawned.

You can do what the hell you want, bu I'm going to bed.

**AN: Hope you like, and please review!**


	19. Peanut Butter Is Good Food

**AN: Hey! Fast update, right? Next might take a while, as I've got no idea of what will happen.**

**This is Simon's POV.**

People always think that not knowing what you were going to do with your life meant that you didn't know what to do at all.

They are wrong.

I know what I want to do right now. I want to bang my head into the wall.

Because dad was playing his fucking music again. I hate his music. I like the genre, but when you grow up with it, and your dad hasn't bought new CDs your entire life...

Anyway, my life sucks.

My best friends family has just died, and he's impossible to reach. We've tried everything. And by we I mean me, Gina and John.

We even asked the firemen, and the police, and though they say they know, they won't tell us. Might be because John looks too young, and me and Gina has dyed hair. I like my hair, but it's not always good.

Though now it was Monday, school, math first class, and Ben had to show up. If he didn't, I was going to kill him, even though I have no idea where he is.

Typical.

There's a guy, that I want to kill, he's my best friend, and I have no idea where the hell he is.

I yawned.

That's it, I thought. I'm going to sleep in class. No way will I be able to sleep with this noise.

I went to the kitchen, and opened the door to the fridge.

Peanut butter! Good way to start the morning, that.

"I won! I won, I won, I won!" dad yelled, and I could hear him open the door to my bedroom, since I had closed it like usual.

"Simon?"

"In the kitchen!" I called, and took another big spoon of peanut butter.

"I won!"

"I heard that. How much?"

"Well, don't ask me," he said.

I rolled my eyes. Typical dad. Seriously, dos it hurt to see how much money you have won? No, it does not.

"Go and check, will you?"

While he went to the TV room, his room of operations, I went to the shower, and locked the door.

"Don't waste the water, it costs!"

Yeah, tell that to Gina, I thought to myself. I had gone to her one day, while she was in the shower. She had already showered a long time, I had to wait half an hour.

After the shower, I got dressed in a pretty clean pants, shirt, and my leather jacket, that I have never washed. I also found a shirt so dirty it was hard to see the color of it. When I got home, I was going to drench it in the tub, if I remember it. Which I probably won't. Though, if I put it on the bed, I would remember it. Though that would dirty the bed. Eh, it can continue it's sad life on the floor.

* * *

Math was sad. Before, when Ben was there, it wasn't.

Now, when the math teacher told us how to do something or another, nobody (Ben) answered her questions, or came with another suggestions of how to do things. She trailed of so much that it was impossible to understand, and even though I don't like math, I tend to understand the main thing. Now it was impossible to do even that.

Then there was a _thump_ from when Gina's head fell onto the table and she started snoring. The math teacher looked close to tears.

I never realized really, how much impact Ben had on the math lessons. The teacher used to be, sort of, into it. Today she looked as though all she wanted to do was have a good cry and eat tons of ice cream.

"Yes?" she asked, her voice trembling, when Burt, one of the students, raised his hand.

"Where the hell is Ben?"

"His family died, so he's at home."

"Do we have to be here?"

"No," the teacher said, and then she started crying.

* * *

At lunch, we talked.

"I just realized something," John said.

"What?"

"We haven't asked the teachers."

"How could we forget that!" Gina said.

"Because we're stupid," I said.

"Speak for yourselves," John said, with a smile.

* * *

"Well, it's obvious. You children," the secretary said with a shake of her head. I hated her. "He lives with his guardian."

"Who's he, then?" I asked.

"Or she," Gina butted in.

"Let's see, um, Cole Turner. Lawyer, lives here in Seattle."

"Thank you," John said, the ass kisser.

* * *

"Here it is," John said.

"Aren't you going to open?" Gina asked.

"He won't, he's a coward," I said.

"Are you going to open?" Gina asked me. I pretended not to hear her.

Gina knocked on the door, and the door was opened.

I don't know what I expected to see, but Ben wasn't it.

"Who is it?" a man called from inside.

"Friends," Ben called back.

"Is it-"

"No."

"Who?" Gina asked.

"A friend," Ben answered. "Want to come in?"

"Why haven't you been in school?" John asked, important things such as school always on his mind.

"I'm depressed," he said, an pointed to his clothes, which were black like usual. Then I remembered that way back, people wore black when they family had died or something.

"It was called mourning in my day," a man that appeared behind Ben said. He looked quite a lot like Ben. "Come on in, _now_, if you please."

We walked into the apartment, or what those luxury things are called. Probably not apartment, but who cares.

"Is this where you're going to be living?" John asked.

"Yeah, think so," Ben said.

"You don't seem very sad," Gina said.

"If you'd follow me," the man said, walked to a door, opened it, walked in, waited until we were in, then walked out and closed the door.

"He's a bit grumpy, he's met his ex's husband, and didn't like him," Ben said.

"I agree with John, you don't seem very sad," I said.

"I've been crying so much that I don't have any tears left," Ben said, seriously. He didn't even look amused. "I'm fine."

"Right, well, we wanted to see how you're doing," Gina said.

"Fine," Ben answered. "I'm fine."

I looked around his room. The walls were painted some variation of white/yellow, there was a bed, a desk, a chair and a book shelf, with three books in it. There was also clothes strewn over the floor, along with paper and scrolls. Gina had noticed that too.

"Why do you have scrolls all over the carpet?"

"Because he gave them to me. No, not Cole," he added when we looked at him. "I'm fine."

"Is, uh, Cole nice?" John asked.

"Yeah, he is. I'm _fine_."

"So, um, who was it he thought it was?" I asked.

"Oh. Um, Mikhail. For some reason, Cole doesn't like him. I think that he's quite nice," Ben answered.

"A Russian?" John asked.

"Yup."

"You seem awfully chipper for someone whose family just died," Gina said.

"I'm fine, really. Let's talk about something else, like, um, someone done anything fun?" Ben asked.

"Yes," John said, literally lighting up like a light bulb. "I have found this great book on second hand. It's called _Going Postal _ and it's by Terry Pratchett."

"Really?" The same changed happened to Ben, and he and John started talking about _Going Posting,_ or something.

"Do you think that there's any food here?" I asked Gina.

"There must be, should be, unlike at your place."

"Don't be silly, peanut butter is great food-"

"It's butter, and that says it all."

"No, it's peanut's, and that says it all," I retorted.

"Have you met a boy, by the way?" Ben asked Gina.

"What? No," she said, but she was lying. Even John could see that. "Okay, fine, but how the hell did you know?"

"Intuition. No really. I am intuitive. Want food?"

"You really are intuitive," John said.

"No, he only heard me and Gina talk about it," I said.

Ben threw the door open, and Cole called: "Ben!"

"Sorry." Ben opened the fridge. "We've got peanut butter, old potatoes since Cole insists on keeping them, oranges, milk and egg. And here we've got bread, spinach, raspberries and ice cream. What do you want?"

"Raspberries," I said.

"An orange," Gina said.

"I don't want anything," John said, "is that seriously all you've got?"

"I've been nicking food off of Piper, one of Cole's friends, and he eats with his clients."

"But you s-"

"He is nice, and I'm fine."

Ben brought out four bowls from a cabinet, and gave us all ice cream, oranges and raspberries.

We were joking and laughing when someone rang the doorbell.

"Damn it," Ben said, and went to open the door. After he opened it, he immediately slammed it shut. "You're going to have to go, sorry," he called to us. I ate my oranges, raspberries and ice cream as fast as I could, and then I had to hurry to take my stuff since the others were already waiting for me.

Then Ben opened the door again, and we were shooed out, while a hot brunette walked in with a furious expression.

Soon afterward we could hear yelling.

"Who was she?" I asked.

"How should I know?" Gina asked. John shrugged.

"Shouldn't he get some other guardian?" Gina said after something made of glass broke.

"He said he was fine," John said.

"He said that too much," Gina said.

* * *

"Hey dad!" I called as I walked through the door to the apartment.

"Hey, where's Ben?" dad asked, out of the blue.

"What?"

"Shouldn't he be here? He usually comes here on Mondays."

"Yeah," I said, surprised by dad. He noticed that Ben was here on Mondays? And I who was so sure that he had no idea of which day was which.

"Why isn't he?"

"His family died. The house burnt up."

"Tell him I'm sorry," dad said. "By the way, which day is it today."

I stomped past him, into my room and shut the door.

Really? He knows the day, and then he doesn't. He's insane. He must be, because if he isn't he's that word, s something, when you enjoy other peoples' pain.

He's slowly driving me crazy.

_I'm coming..._

It's too late to save myself, I am already crazy.

**AN: Hope you like, and please review!**


	20. The Disappearances

**AN: Two weeks, yeah, sorry about the wait. But, I think that the next chapter will come out faster, because then I won't have any problem with writing Ben.**

"Laalalallalallalallalaah!"

_Crash!_

"_You should be dead!" _Phoebe yelled.

Can't they stop behaving like idiots and behave like the adults they're supposed to be?

_**But that wouldn't be as fun for them...**_

Who the hell cares about that? I know I don't.

_**Hear, hear, suddenly I'm the one who defends people...**_

Yeah, and I can't see why, they're idiots. They clearly love each other, and yet they fight and try to kill each other.

_**How do you know that they love each other?**_

Because they do, you're just too blind to see it.

_**Well, I use your eyes, so it's understandable...**_

Bastard.

Then the screaming reached a new level, and I sang some more.

Can't they just stop? God, I should have followed the others. Why didn't I do that?

_**Because you're a martyr...**_

I hate this.

_**Then quit your moaning and do something about it...**_

Fine, I'm fine.

_**It's driving me nuts too...**_

I stood up, and opened the door just in time to see Phoebe disappear, like the blonde woman in the cave.

_A blonde woman stood there, in a cave with several cave openings to other caves, looking around, and shouting :"Tempus? Are you there?" _

_"Tempus? You confuse me with Tempus?" A steel-like voice echoed. She didn't seem to see from where it came, and then she shriveled away as if time had moved forward._

_**But she didn't shrivel, she just disappeared...**_

But it felt the same.

"Do you know what happened?" Cole asked me, standing there with a shocked expression, probably sad that Phoebe had stopped throwing breakable stuff at him. And she had thrown quite a lot, judging from the mess that the room was. It was even more messy than mine. "Do you?"

"No," I said.

Cole had that look on his face, the look that said that I was hiding something from him. It was a look that I had grown accustomed to. He didn't believe me when I said that I had only been kidnapped and then I had killed my kidnappers and that's that.

I didn't want to tell him about Hades, I didn't want to tell him that I had tried to save my parents, I didn't want to tell him about me, I was me, and I didn't want Cole to know more than he already did. So what if the Source said that he actually was my father? So what?

_**So he's your father... And you're not fine, even I can see that...**_

I'm fine, and you can't see that.

"Do you expect me to believe that?"

"Yes, because I was telling the truth."

_**Though you do know what happened... It was the Titans... Why don't you tell? Don't want him to help you solve it? You don't want to kill the Titans...**_

Of course I do.

"What does he know?"

"What?"

"You get a far off look in your eyes when you talk to him, and what did he tell you?"

"Nothing!"

Then I was saved from Cole's inquisition by Chris, who orbed into the penthouse.

_**Why doesn't he have wards...**_

"Why don't you have wards?" I asked Cole.

"Not now," Cole said.

"Mom disappeared, as did Paige, do you know where Phoebe is?" Chris asked.

_**Impolite brat...**_

Well, what do you think that I am?

"It went fast," Cole said.

"What went fast?"

"You getting together and figuring out what to do. She's gone," I said.

_**Dead...**_

All shriveled up and gone.

I smiled at the thought, and they looked weirdly at me. Chris was probably already of the opinion that I was crazy, and Cole probably just discarded it as if the Source had said something funny.

"How do you know that?" Chris asked.

"Because that's what I do." Chris looked at me, with the look of someone who clearly thought that the person who someone looked at was crazy, but refused to say it and instead looked like it. "I'm fine."

"Are... they dead?"

"No," I said with a shake of my head.

_**Liar, liar, pants on fire...**_

"You're lying," Chris accused.

"Yes."

"Oh," Chris said, looking heartbroken.

"Just kidding, anyway, they're just gone because they are the Charmed Ones, they have lots of allies, and if you want to bring down the good side of magic in a quick and easy way, those are the ones to disappear, as the Elders have wards against that kind of thing."

"Does it have anything to do with your disappearance?"

"No!" Chris and Cole stared at me. "No, it does not."

"Are you sure about that? Because Chris has a point," Cole said.

"He's just a kid who's mom disappeared."

"And what did your mom do a week ago?"

"She died, and left behind a charred body, _she _did not disappear."

"No, she died, because of you, right?" Chris said, and looked close to tears.

As usual, when I get mad, I got warm.

_**Kill him...**_

I settled for creating several fire-balls and then just letting them die. Chris looked a bit frightened by the fire-balls, but it's not as if I was aiming at anyone.

"Chris, be nice or today will be the day that this penthouse is destroyed," Cole told Chris, and he looked like he thought it unfair, but he didn't say anything. Stupid. "Do you know where they are?" Cole asked me.

"No, I don't," I said, exasperated.

_**Why don't you force him to listen to you...**_

"But you know that they are gone, how come that you don't know where they are? Or are they dead and gone?" Chris asked, and you had to give him credit for the effort he made to not cry, but, unfortunately for him, his eyes still glistened.

"I can go and check if they're dead, if you want."

Then Cole disappeared.

_**What are you going to do now? **_the Source asked with glee.

"Are you worried now?" Chris asked me.

"Of course I am, Chris, I'm not stupid, on the contrary to what you seem to think. We need to get back to the Mansion, this place isn't warded."

Chris orbed, and I followed.

In the attic, where all the kids and three husbands that the Halliwells had were collected, Wyatt had his shield up. He let it down when he saw Chris, but he seemed tempted to put it right back up when he saw me.

"Cole's gone too," Chris told Wyatt.

"Was it the same?" Piper's husband, no idea what the hell his name is, asked.

_**Leo... Former whitelighter...**_

"Yes," Chris answered.

"Do you know what I think is funny? It's that you're all hiding behind Wyatt," I said, and they all glared at me.

"Well, what do you propose we do?"

"Hiding behind a child is _pathetic,_" I said.

"Ben, we don't have time for this, we need to come up with some plan of attack, or at least defense," Leo said.

"Well, I must have a plan, so relax," I said nonchalantly, but I wasn't. How the hell was I supposed to get that plan of attack that I knew Hades must have planned out.

_**Maybe you should go to sleep...**_

Or faint, maybe.

"Must?" a guy that I think must be Phoebe's husband, asked.

"Yes," I snapped.

"Are you sane?" Wyatt asked, and Leo glared at him, but he didn't say anything.

_**He agrees...**_

I rolled my eyes at him, and then collapsed.

"_I've had a great idea!" Zeus said as he walked into my cave in the underworld._

"_Really?"_

"_Yes, really. I've been thinking that I need help with my job, like, making the world a better place, and then I realized that I could use dead, wise men to help me, right, only problem is that I don't have nay, so you need to give me one."_

"_Just one wise man? Zeus, you need several to make up for the fact that you're lacvking in th brain department."_

"_Lacking? I'm not lacking, you're the one who's-"_

"_I meant in the brain department."_

"_Oh. Well, you're right then. Anyway, will you help me?"_

"_Of course, since you doesn't do your job, you might need someone with work ethic."_

_I should've known that his idea would fail. The Elders, as they were called, didn't like him and his lifestyle._

_Eventually, after they felt that they had learned everything that Zeus could teach them (though not the things that he was an expert on, since they had decided that making the world a better place was such a big job that celibacy was the way to go), they disposed of him._

_Poseidon was very mad at me for that, though it wasn't really my fault that Zeus had chosen the wrong wise men to do his job for him._

"_Do, do, do you have a, a , a planofattack?" the little boy that I had gotten from Hel asked._

"_Why, yes. I plan to bring us back."_

"_Us? Do, do, do you mean your brother?"_

"_Yes. Poseidon has been aging well, but he won't be able to fight, since he's too lazy. Zeus can be re-awaken, which will be done, and you'll put me into a boy."_

"_Boy?"_

"_Yes, I'll have to orchestrate that too, but the main thing is that Zeus, me, and King Arthur will be fighting the Titans."_

"_King Arthur?"_

"_Yes, he's coming back as well, it won't be too hard."_

"_King Arthur? Won't, won't, won't that create a un-balance?"_

"_Un-balance? I don't think so."_

"_Bu-but, two, two, twolords, and, and, one king?"_

"_Do you have a problem with that?" I asked coldly. He shook his head, terrified. At least he should be grateful that he's not living on the surface._

**AN: And that's the end of this chapter, hope you like. They're got a tough road ahead of them, and Ben has to figure out how to execute Hades's plan, which, since he doesn't know about the sword, will be tough.**

**Anyway, the one who figures out how Ben is alive, will be able to wish for a one-shot set in this universe. And it's not that hard, there's a clue in this chapter.**


	21. I Have A Plan, And It Won't Fail

**AN: Right, so I thought that I would explain a bit about the villain in a few earlier chapter, that were then forgotten. And the next chapter should be up tomorrow, maybe today.**

I was big in the Underworld once. I even got to work for the Source. I had a plan. I thought that the plan was great.

I didn't want to stay a subject to the Source, not after everything that I had done for the Underworld. I wanted to be the Source. I wanted to be both the Source of all Evil, and a Seer. And that way, I didn't have to get a Seer to tell me the future, and then trust her, like the Source had me, and look where that got him.

If I still had a body, I would've smiled. But I didn't have a body, and therefor I couldn't.

He was just supposed to be a tool, something that I could use, I never thought about the possibility that he might have feelings. But now I had taken that all into account, so the plan couldn't fail. I was going to become the Source. The plan was not going to fail.

Though there was one thing that I hadn't taken into account. The Titans. I hadn't taken into account that they would act so soon, I thought that they would wait. Why couldn't they wait? Everything would've been so much easier for them, then.

They wouldn't have had _Him _fighting against them. Though, now they do, and what can an innocent, old, Seer do about it?

I could lock them up, I suppose, but that would be too easy. Mayhem is more like it, and even though I'm not sure that letting things take their course will give me a chance to torture _Him, I'm_ sacrificing it. Because I would always do something about them later on, all it takes is a good plan, and preparations.

I'm going to destroy him! And those pesky parents of his.

And then I'll thank that _Woman _who saved him, and tell her that her plan failed.

**AN: What do you think? Please review.**


	22. The Plan

"King Arthur," I murmured then I opened my eyes only to see Leo's face up close; I immediately closed my eyes.

"He seems to be okay," Leo said.

_**Whitelighters are such a simple breed, always concerned with others' well being...**_

I tentatively opened my eyes again, and thankfully, Leo was now standing up, and his face wasn't that close to mine. I heaved myself up on my elbows, and then managed to sit up in the old couch that I was laying in.

_**I don't remember that couch... They must have changed...**_

"What about King Arthur?" Wyatt asked, looking worried.

"He's part of the plan," I answered. Wyatt and Leo exchanged worried looks.

"What's the plan, then?" Paige's husband asked. That's when I noticed that all the young kids and Phoebe's husband were gone.

"I need King Arthur, whom I don't know anything about, and Zeus, who got killed through his own incredible stupidity."

"You don't seem to know why you should do that," Leo remarked.

"I don't," I said, going for the honest approach.

"Then, why are you going to do it?" Paige's husband asked.

"Because, and, what the hell is your name?"

"Henry," Henry answered.

"Great," I said, then shimmered out of the attic, to get some information.

* * *

Mikhail was talking on the phone.

"So what? She obviously hated you," Mikhail said and he was talking in a voice that I had never heard him use before. He then looked up at me and gestured for me to sit down."So? Take a vacation, then. They don't need you to push paper... No, I can't come. Busy... Yeah, she should've... Get drunk. Go and buy the best alcohol you can afford and get drunk. Your wife just committed suicide... Stop being so responsible. The environment will be fine without you, I promise... Bye." Then he ended the call, and glared at me.

"What the hell have I told you about shimmering right into my apartment?"

"That I shouldn't, but, it's important. And who were you talking to?"

"He's a environmentalist, and his wife is a, was, a lawyer. I'm trying to stop him from trying to save the environment, because it's making some of the demons over there insane." Mikhail had a sinister smile on his face, as though he remembered doing something really mean and enjoyed the memory.

"What, you killed his wife and then you tell him to stop caring?"

"And here I was, thinking, that you didn't have a brain."

"You seem happy," I noted.

"I _am_ happy."

"Yeah, I believe you."

_**Do not...**_

"What are you here for, anyway?"

"I wanted to know if you knew anything about King Arthur."

Mikhail started laughing... and then he couldn't stop.

_**Not like the Halliwells reacted...**_

"You don't know about King Arthur?"

When I shook my head, he only started laughing again. I sighed, then took ten deep breaths so that I wouldn't 'accidentally' kill him.

"Okay. King Arthur. I assume that you've heard about him before?"

"Yes, like every other kid, I have. But, he exists in the magical world, and in that world, I know nothing about him!"

I tried really hard not to set anything on fire, but I failed, and the bed that I think is the place where Mikhail does ever- so not going there. Anyway, the bed was on fire.

Thankfully, Mikhail had a fire extinguisher next to the bed.

"Never thought that the extinguisher would ever come in handy," he muttered.

"What did you get it for?"

"Once, I smoked in bed, and then the whole apartment block burned down. It was quite spectacular, but I was in the middle of reading a book, and then I couldn't remember the title."

"Stuff like that's so stupid," I said.

After that, we move out, and onto the balcony. It was freezing outside, not that Mikhail seemed to notice.

"Right, King Arthur. The magical version doesn't differ that much from the non-magical one, other than that it's more specified, not that that matter for this. Anyway, King Arthur died, so he's dead. But, his sword, Excalibur, continued to exist. Then, one day, it appeared again, and the one who could pull it out was a toddler, the new King Arthur, Wyatt Halliwell, the good side's big hope."

_**Wyatt!**_

"Are you okay? You jumped there, for a moment," Mikhail said. "Oh, don't tell me, you know Halliwell?"

"I don't like him," I muttered.

"Surprised that you don't. Though, I guess you're a bit too open-minded for him."

"What, you've met him?" I asked.

"No, haven't, though I've met his father. Didn't like him."

"So, you're prejudiced?"

"No," Mikhail protested.

"Then why don't you like him?"

"Since when did you get so annoying?"

"Don't get so pissed about it."

"Well, why wouldn't I? You just put my bed on fire."

"You had a fire extinguisher right next to it, it's not as if the bed was in any danger."

"But what about the sheets, then?"

"They're cheap." Mikhail took several deep breaths, and looked as if his biggest desire was to punch me in the face.

"Was there something else?" he asked, when he had somewhat calmed down.

"Yeah. Do you know anything about Zeus?"

"Ben, how old do you think that I am?"

"About 90 years."

"It was rhetorical. Anyway, I don't know anything about him, except that his soul, or whatever, is with the Morons Up There."

"The Elders, you mean?"

"Finally, you know _something."_

_**There's something that's been nagging me... Why didn't Hades kill the Elders?**_

"I'm leaving, should I go out through the door?" I asked, Mikhail's bad mood giving me a bad mood.

"Yes!" he exclaimed, then showed me the door, opened it, then pushed me out.

"Lover's quarrel?" and old lady who was just about to open the door across Mikhail's, holding a bag from the super market, asked.

"No!"

"Don't worry, homosexuality is all the anger nowadays."

"It's rage, not anger," I corrected her, and the stomped down the stairs. I could hear her chuckling all the way down.

When I got to nearest secluded alley, and found out why Hades didn't kill the Elders, he couldn't get Up There, and neither could I.

_**Limitations... **_The Source growled, which, considering in my head, was scary.

Do you know how to get up there?

_**You**_ _**have**_ _**to**_ _**orb... And**_ _**not**_ _**any**_ _**sort**_ _**of**_ _**orbing**_ _**either, but**_ _**the**_ **good** _**sort...**_

Why didn't you say that then?

The Source was quiet.

Didn't cross your mind, I suppose?

_**Go to the Manor... At least one of the spawn has to be able to orb...**_

* * *

I rang the doorbell.

_**Why don't you just shimmer in?**_

Because I don't want to scare them.

Then the door was opened by a young girl, with brown hair and eyes.

"You're tall"

"That I am. Could you let me in?"

"What would happen, if I said no?"

"I'd walk right in, because it's important in saving your mom."

"Do you know my mom?"

"Yes."

"What's her name?"

"It has slipped my mind, now would you let me in?"

"No," she said, and closed the door, however, she couldn't close it completely since my foot was in the way. Then I forced my way in, which included pushing her gently aside.

"DAD!" she yelled, and I don't think that my ears will ever be the same again. The little bitch.

Then, in hearts, Cupid appeared. She pointed a finger (not the rude one) at me. "He forced himself in, and then he says that he knows my mom, but that her name has slipped his mind."

"Her name's Phoebe, see, I do remember," I told her.

"No, you don't. You're lying!"

"I don't have time for this," I told Cupid.

_**She's**_ _**like**_ **her** _**isn't**_ _**she?**_

Like who?

_**Your sister...**_

Don't you go there, you idiot!

"Have you found anything out?" Coop asked me.

"Yes, I have. I need help by someone who can get Up There," I said, and pointed at the roof.

"Are you mad at me?" he asked.

"Of course not, don't be silly," I sneered.

"You're mean," the girl who had opened the door said, as she walked by me and up the stairs.

"And you've got no filter between your brain and your mouth!" I called after her.

**AN: I know that some of the sentences sound strange, _but _I am a Swede, and English is not my first language, so they can sound strange.**

**Anyway, hope that you like.**


	23. In My Brother's Shadow

I breathed really quickly, and tried to remember my dream. As usual, I couldn't. But I was scared to go back to sleep, too.

Wyatt was snoring. We both wanted to have our own rooms, and mom and dad said that that would happen soon, but I think that they were lying.

And Wyatt was mad at me for destroying his truck, so I didn't want to sleep with him. I walked to mom's and dad's room.

"He's having nightmares Leo, do you think that it might be connected to, well, Chris?"

I stopped.

"Piper, with our lives, I would be worried if he didn't have nightmares."

"But he's not supposed to have nightmares, he's supposed to be a happy child, with good dreams about, I don't know, unicorns!"

"Mom, I had a bad dream," I said sleepily, and stepped into their bedroom. "Can I sleep in your bed tonight?"

"Of course peanut."

I didn't want to tell them that I had heard that they were talking about me, because mom always said that doing that will get you into trouble. I didn't want to get into trouble.

* * *

"Mom, why don't I have a past life, like Wyatt?"

"Of course you have one, peanut," mom said, and continued to chop carrots.

"But not like Wyatt," I said, and looked down onto my homework.

"Neither do I, but I've still-"

"Yeah, but you're the oldest. And I am not." I looked at her stomach, that was getting larger everyday. "I'll be the middle child, the kid that nobody cares about."

"Peanut, who told you that?" mom asked, and turned my face to her's. I looked at the onions instead. "Well, don't listen to them."

"But, mom, they're right!"

"No, peanut, they're not. I will always love you, just as much as I love Wyatt, and as much as I love my baby."

"Are you sure?" I looked at her.

"Yes. You know," mom said, and sat down in the chair next to mine. "I used to be the middle child. Grams still cared for me, just as much as she cared about Prue and Phoebe."

"Okay, mom," I said and hugged her.

* * *

"I don't want to have a sister. Grams will like her more than us," I said.

"Don't be stupid. She'll be a baby, and babies are boring," Wyatt said.

"You're boring," I told him.

"No, you are. You've got so few powers, that's what makes you boring."

"I am not boring!" I yelled, and angrily swiped away tears. I am not boring, no matter what Wyatt says.

"Then you're a crybaby," Wyatt said.

"No!" I yelled.

"Hey, hey, hey," aunt Phoebe said, walking into the waiting room with a bag of chips. "What's going on?"

"Chris is boring," Wyatt said.

"What? No, he's not. What makes you think that?"

"Because I don't have any cool powers," I said.

"Well, neither do I, but I'm not boring, am I?"

"No, but you're a grown-up, and grown-ups don't think that that matters."

"Wyatt, just because you have powers, it doesn't mean that you're less boring than Chris," aunt Phoebe said.

"I'm not boring!" Wyatt yelled, and his face grew all red.

"I wasn't saying that, sweetie. I was just saying that you have the same value, right? Wyatt, apologize to Chris, okay?"

"Sorry," Wyatt mumbled to me.

"It's okay," I said.

"And now you hug," aunt Phoebe ordered. We hugged.

"Aunt Phoebe, do you think that Grams will like our sister more than us?"

"Of course she won't. But, don't you think that it will be fun to have a sister?"

"No," Wyatt and I said at the same time, and giggled.

* * *

Ben's plan was quite good, even though dad was dead against it. Apparently, it had something to do with the Time That Should Never Be Talked About. You would come into a room, and they (mom and dad) would stop talking. It had happened numerous times.

But since dad couldn't give Ben a good reason, he (Ben) wouldn't budge. Not even when dad told him that he needed to have someone to put the guy, Zeus, in. That part wasn't edited. Although Ben still wouldn't budge.

"Do you think that he's going to go down on his knees and beg?" Wyatt whispered in my ear. I smiled, and nodded.

"But, Ben, is that the only way? Can't you summon him?" Henry asked. I liked Henry, he was the guy who respected you, who didn't look down on you even though you were a kid. And he was normal, unlike the rest of the family. Seriously, nobody else I know have ghosts over for their birthday party.

"Summon a god?" Ben asked with a disbelieving look on his face. Then he got that faraway expression that he always got when someone said something that he didn't believe. It was as though he discussed the credibility of the statement in his head, with someone else. Maybe he was a half-demon, whose demon half stood for excellent conversation?

Though I don't really think so, because he hasn't attacked us yet, and the shimmering could be something else. So could the zoning out be. He could have a split personality.

"He's not a god," dad said.

"He has godlike powers," Ben retorted, and looked incredibly childish. "Besides, his body has been destroyed."

"How'd you know that?" dad asked.

"It was an educated guess. Now, come one, we need to hurry up before the Titans get bored with the demon population."

"So what? Demons dying is good, isn't it?" Wyatt asked. The look on Ben's face said that demons dying was very bad.

Then he picked his cellphone out of his pocket.

"Want to know something really interesting?" he asked.

"All the demons are dead?"Wyatt guessed.

"No, you idiot. They're not attacking darklighters. What do you think will happen when theyäre finished with the demons? They'll kill all the whitelighters. After that, the witches are without guidance. The Charmed´Ones are gone, and, you're thoroughly fucked. We have to hurry it up."

"Okay," dad said with a determined look on his face, which meant that he would go through with the plan, even though he didn't like it, because it was a sensible option. "We'll call for an El-"

"Please, they'll take the whole day just to stand up, why can't Wyatt, or, even better, Chris, give me a ride?"

"No, if we're gonna-"

"Don't you want your wife back?" Ben interrupted, after having had that faraway look on his face. "Yes, you do. Now, Chris, we're leaving."

he held out his arm to me, and I took it.

When we arrived at Elderland, Ben was looking a bit sick, as though he was trying really hard not to puke.

"Okay, this way," he said, and pointed at, well, white. I had always been amazed that the Elders could navigate this place, but I've always thought that that comes with having lived here for years/decades/centuries. And then Ben, who has never been here before, knows exactly where to go.

But I still don't agree with Wyatt's theory, that Ben's out to get us. He would've gotten us already then. And Paige's theory is also wrong, that Ben is Cole's spy. Because mom said so, and I think that she (mom) is right.

We stopped in front of two golden gates, that I opened with the help of telekinesi, one of the three powers that I had. I didn't like to have so few powers, especially compared to my brother, because it made me feel unimportant. Mom always told me not to care about it, and dad always said that I had gotten the brains which were a lot better than having powers, but I still feel bad about it. It's like missing a limb.

Ben walked into the room, in which there was a big urn, a picture of a guy who slept, and had seaweed as hair, and a picture that was black, but with a few vague lines that looked like Ben, who then smashed that glass,.

"What the hell did you do?"

"Well, you saw what I did," Ben said.

"Yeah, but why? It's just a piece of glass, with a few lines on it that did, admittedly, look like you."

"Yeah," Ben said. "Anyway, this is what we came for," he said, and pointed at the urn. "Could you open it?"

"Why can't you?"

"Because I, think that you should do it."

"That's not a reason."

"It is. Okay, now, open, the, lid. Please," he added sarcastically at the end.

"Fine," I said, and opened it.

I had expected to see something in it, not golden light flying into me. I stumbled, and dropped the urn.

"That was a really awful thing to be stuck in," I said. "Brother, why did you not release me _sooner_?" I whined. "And you look great, though a bit young," I said thoughtfully.

"Really?"

"Though you're still the same boring person."

Hades sighed, yawned, and then glared at me.

"Oh, and where are the Elders? Because I want to kill them. Why didn't you do that by the way?"

"The Titans are loose, okay?"

"What, you don't want to talk? That's really rude, and to think that we haven't seen each other for decades." Hades rolled his eyes, and crossed his arms. "Though I suppose that that might have happened before."

"Titans!"Hades yelled.

"Don't get so mad, brother. Makes you all red."

**AN: So, Zeus is a lot harder to deal with than Ben thought. Next chapter, there will be Titan action, and the story's drawing to and end. Can't really believe it. Please review!  
**


	24. The Scary Part

**AN: Hejsan, svejsan. This chapter was supposed to be earlier, but it wasn't. Hope you like, I'm happy with it.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed, it belongs to Constance M Burge, I think. **

Zeus was a very vain jerk. I felt sorry for Chris.

"But, looking like a kid might be good, couldn't it? Though, maybe not? But, if if speed po the aging process he won't have had the time to mature properly, which, in turn, could lead to the worst consequence of all."

"Tough decision," I said sarcastically.

"Yes! I mean, I could end up with no-"

That's when I left. Zeus was too vain for me to handle.

* * *

"So, you're his replacement?" a raspy, and quite frankly scary voice asked. Hel's voice.

"I don't want to be," I said.

"I didn't want him to die," she said.

"I know. You told me, no, _him, _not to do it. And you refused to kill him. I'm scared of water, you know. Wasn't before, but I am now, all thanks to you."

"You're not sure of who you are, right?" she asked.

"I _am_."

"No, you're not. You're him, and you're you, at the same time. Problem is, he wants to be in charge, but since it's your body, you also wants to be in charge. And he's subtle, so you're only noticing it subconsciously, but since you're not really sure, you aren't putting up the fight that you probably could put up, if you wanted."

"How do you know all that?" Not that what she was saying was true, but...

"When's the first time that we met?"

"_Hello."_

_I can't show fear, they'll eat me _alive_ then. I turned around, quickly, and hoped that I managed to not look too nervous. Then I yelped when I saw the creature' s face._

"_I would have thought, that with a father like yours, you wouldn't be that scared of someone as harmless as me."_

"_Are you, female?" _

"_My gender doesn't matter, my name is Hel, and I'm the one who runs the death business down here."_

"_Yeah? Then how come the dead gets lost on the way?" I said, and didn't feel that scared anymore. This was something that I knew about. I knew about the problems with the death business. And I was going to put them right._

"When I was new to, no, today, no, we, um, _sometime_," was the final answer. When the hell did we meet? I mean, I've met her before, I know that I have, but yet...

"You're pitying me," I said suddenly.

"No, because I think that it's you-"

"You can't lie to him. Me, I mean. Empath. No!"

I can't be that.

"I told you that he's trying to take over," she said, sounding really proud over being right.

"Well, he won't. And he's not."

The ground shook, and I lost my balance. Hel just stood there, like the divine goddess that she thought she was. Though she did look a bit worried, I think. It's hard to read emotions on a face that ugly.

"I have to go and get King Arthur, so that I can finally kill those bastards," I told Hel.

"Don't forget princess. I may hate him, but he can pack a punch."

* * *

"_Dearest brother, what do you think?" a woman, with white hair and white toga, asked. She was pregnant. And looked like Zeus would if he was a woman._

"_What have you done now?"_

"_I wanted to see if I could do it. And don't you think that I am pretty gorgeous?" Zeus twirled._

"_What do you think that the Elders will think about this?"_

"_Well, what do I care? They're not in charge of me, I'm in charge of them."_

"_Yet you've given them enough power to, combined, take you down."_

"_Meh. They wouldn't dare, I'm a god, brother. Well, goddess, I suppose."_

"_I thought that you were here," Hel said, as she walked into the room, getting prettier the closer __she got to Zeus. "As a girl. Just like my father. What a copycat you are."_

"_But I'm a god, and he was only-"_

"_He wasn't only anything," Hel snapped._

_Her family was a sore subject for her, since they didn't exactly agree with each other. The only one that she didn't have anything against was Jormungand, her snake of a brother. She had even given him a job in the Demonic Wastelands, a fact that made me fell safer around her since it was proof that she actually had a heart. That, and how protective she was for the dead women and children._

* * *

"Ben? You don't look like you anymore," Prue said, after she had let me in. She looked scared, and uncertain. "And, why are you two persons? I mean, you were like that before, but now it's more than ever. Yeah."

"Well, I'm fine, so you don't have to worry," I told her.

Then Leo came thundering down the stairs.

"Where the hell is Chris?" he asked, red in the face.

"He's somewhere, what should I care?"

Then Wyatt, who had orbed down, tried to hit me, only his hand went straight through. Felt scalding.

"What the hell did you do that for? No, don't answer, we need to hurry, because soon, the Underworld is going to fall, and that's not good."

"Why do you care so much about the Underworld, when you kill demons?" Prue asked.

"I don't!" I exclaimed. Leo looked as if he wanted to hit me. "Forget it, the point is that the Underworld is full of powerful demons who all know how to fight. If they fall, then things don't bode well for you, do they? Anyway, Wyatt, we're out of here."

I grabbed his hand, and we shadowed to Heaven, where Chris/Zeus was sitting upside down in one of the throne chairs, looking bored out of his mind.

"Wyatt!" he called and hugged Wyatt, who looked shocked. And he was mad at me.

"What do you say we kill some Titans?"

"Well..." Chris/Zeus said. He doesn't want to fight now?

"_The fight has started, you need to hurry up now before _I _kill everyone!" Zeus tugged at my arm._

"_Yeah, but, maybe we could reach a peaceful, um, something."_

"_Don't be stupid, that won't work. And here I thought that you were smart." Zeus shook his head, trying to look sad, but failing._

"_I am."_

"_Well, come on then. Please," he added, and then I realized that my battle was already lost. Zeus had had me wrapped around his finger since birth._

"Chris, Zeus, whatever, are you scared?"

"Well, I am. You're crazy, and evil," Wyatt said.

"Yeah, Wyatt, I am. In my spare time, I kill puppies. I've always found it a fascinating hobby." Wyatt glowered at me, and gripped his sword, which had somehow magically appeared, tighter.

"I am not scared, so let's go," Chris/Zeus said.

At least he's coming.

Even though he's scared out of his wits.

"Is this really so important?" Wyatt whined.

"What, you want the world in smithereens?"

"No, but..." he trailed off.

"Show some spirit, it'll be a fight!" Chris/Zeus said, and a big goofy smile stretched across his face. Wyatt looked sick.

"And, how come I haven't been affected, or you?" Wyatt asked.

"I am affected, and you're not because my dear brother, no, because, the jerk, gaah." I took a deep breath. "Poseidon can't come because he isn't dead."

"And how come you're messing up nouns, and Chris isn't."

"It's _pro_nouns. And I'm fighting it. Somehow. Chris isn't."

"So what, you're saying that Chris is weak?"

"No! I'm just saying that-"

"This is all very interesting, but could we hurry up?" Chris/Zeus asked.

"Before you crap your pants, you mean?" I asked. "No, you're right, let's hurry up."

Then my cellphone buzzed.

**How it going?** Mikhail texted.

**Off to battle with CO sons, **I replied.

**Make sure W don't die. Important in rituals**.

**And kidnappings, **I added. Wyatt glared at me, as though he knew what I was texting about.

**Lol.**

**I'm sure.**

**AN: Please review, and here's a preview of the next chapter:**

"Are you the ones who are going to stop us?" I glanced at Chris/Zeus and Wyatt. They looked more scared than I thought that someone was able to look.


	25. The Battle

**AN: Hey! Right, so this is the second to last chapter, there's just an epilogue left. Hope you like, and please review.**

**I am going to write a sequel to this, that deals with a few issues that hasn't been dealt with in this story, and if anyone has any ideas for it, do tell, since I'm not really sure what's going to happen in it.**

**And now, straight to the action.**

"Ben!" Wyatt yelled. Then he ducked to avoid lightning. The lightning hit the mountain wall behind him, and pieces of rock crumpled to the ground. Wyatt looked, if possible, even more scared than before. Chris/Zeus, gave Wyatt a comforting smile.

"What the hell are we supposed to do?" Wyatt asked.

Kronos just laughed, then he threw a bolt of lightning towards me. I jumped, about seven, eight feet into the air.

"Oh, this isn't fair," Kronos said. "Three against one."

I threw out my arm, and shot a line of blue fire. Chris/Zeus, added his own two cents by throwing lightning. Wyatt encased us in a blue shield.

Kronos was screaming, and then he disappeared.

"We killed him," Wyatt panted.

"No,"Chris/Zeus and I said at the same time.

"But he disappeared."

"Yeah, he did. He went back to his headquarters. And wanna know something, that's where your mom is, that's where your aunts are, and that is where Cole is."

"And what do you want with him, anyways?" Wyatt asked. I sighed, and Chris/Zeus settled down as though he was preparing for watching the best movie in his whole life.

"Uhmm, he's my parental guardian, and I want him back."

"But you do know that he's a demon?"

"What does that have to do with anything? He takes care of me, whether you like it or not," I snapped.

"What's the next plan?" Wyatt asked abruptly.

Maybe Arthur is showing some backbone.

"We find their lair."

"And how do we do that?" Chris/Zeus asked, returning to the conversation.

"We, um, I don't know, we find it," I answered.

"Scrying, maybe," Wyatt suggested.

"Wouldn't work. No, blood spell. We need Poseidon," I said.

"No, you do. I'm not going down there, and Wyatt could die, since he's not immortal," Chris/Zeus said.

Yeah, he just had to get smart.

That is what happens when you pick someone smart to put him in.

Why didn't I take Wyatt?

"Down where?" Wyatt asked, sounding frustrated.

"Undersea. Anyway, I go down there even though I am deathly afraid of water," Chris/Zeus looked very interested at that piece of information, ", and ask him for a blood sample. You and you stay here and brush up on your fighting skills, cause you're going to need it."

* * *

Poseidon was, surprisingly, looking blue, and extremely wrinkly. Like a blue raisin.

"Well, you've aged well," he told me.

"Why, thank you," I answered.

"What's the name of the poor guy that you're wearing?" he asked.

"My name's Ben," I answered, and he looked at me with the same expression that Hel had had. Pity.

"Well, what are you here for?"

He's mellowed.

He should have been like this before.

"I need a bloodsample. From you," I added.

"And why is that? So that you can give it to the Titans so that they can find me?" Poseidon asked rhetorically.

He has also grown smart.

Where is the boy who looked up to me?

"No, so that we, I mean, I, can find the Titans, and kill them."

"Son-"

"Poseidon, I'm your brother, not your son. You must be going senile in your old age."

"I knew that. What I was going to say was that all the Titans aren't on the same place at the same time. They're all over the place. And the only one that you're going to find with my blood is father."

"I know that."

"How are you going to find the others then?"

"Technology," I answered.

Poseidon looked very confused at that comment, but he did give me his blood. And several pointers on how to do it, even though I had been the one to teach him how to do it.

* * *

We appeared in a cave, very much alike the one that I had seen in my dream. The difference was now that there were other Titans there.

"Oh, look who has come here to play with us," one of them, a woman, said. The male Titan behind her cracked his knuckles. Kronos looked victorious.

"Are you the ones who are going to stop us?" I glanced at Chris/Zeus and Wyatt. They looked more scared than I thought that someone was able to look.

"You weren't so cocky when we last met," Chris/Zeus said, apparently not scared enough to not talk back.

"Well, you ain't gonna be cocky when this is over," the man spoke up. He ran towards Chris/Zeus, his fist raised. He obviously thought that Chris/Zeus was, well, a kid.

When Chris/Zeus hit him in the face, so that he flew across the room, you would have thought that his opinion would change. But no.

"Lucky hit."

Chris/Zeus just smirked, while the woman rolled her eyes, and sent a bolt of lightning Wyatt, which was absorbed by his shield.

Kronos transported himself away, and appeared behind me. With a laugh, he threw me into a wall. I could feel it cracking behind me, and I slid down slowly.

At the same time, I could hear a crack as one of the man's legs were broken. The look on Chris/Zeus face was pure malice.

Wyatt, however, wasn't having it as easy. In fact, it looked as though he was about to loose. Chris/Zeus immediately went to help him out of his predicament.

I felt at the back of my head for any damage. When I brought my fingers back for inspection, they were bloody. I wiped them of on my jeans, which were going straight to the trash can when I got home, and touched the back of my head again. It wasn't very sticky.

I was going to be okay.

I heaved myself up, and charged at Kronos. At the last moment I shadowed behind him, and kicked him in the knees. He stumbled.

Then, with a _swoosh, _the woman's head fell of her shoulders. Wyatt looked murderous, and Chris/Zeus had a scratch on his face.

In the meantime, Kronos had turned around, and grabbed me by the throat. The harder he squeezed, the more I felt like laughing.

I'm Hades.

No, I just happen to have his powers.

Wyatt, however, looked alarmed at the development. So he ran forward, and was about to swing his sword, but Kronos grabbed it, probably thinking that it was a normal sword, and looked incredibly shocked when the sword slid straight through his hand.

I put my hands around his neck, and with a satisfying crack, Kronos neck snapped.

"Now that we have killed them, where is mom?" Wyatt asked.

"Oh, they're in the cave over there," I said and pointed.

"Ben, that's a _wall_," Wyatt pointed out.

"No, that's an entrance, into a cave, that you can't see. Just walk straight through it and you'll be there."

"Then you'll go first."

"Sure," I said, and walked straight through the wall to another cave, mentally rolling my eyes over this fixation with caves, and found Cole, Piper, Phoebe and Paige, all passed out.

"It's okay," I yelled, and in came Chris/Zeus, dragging Wyatt.

Wyatt looked incredibly relieved, and as he set about waking his mom, I realized how incredibly protective he was.

"Cole," I said softly, shaking him. His eyes opened immediately. "You've been kidnapped."

"The Titans?" he asked.

"Mostly gone. I'm going to go of and kill the rest of them, but don't tell anyone."

I sneaked out of the cave, and texted Mikhail.

**Where is the battle?**

Hope he's still alive.

He is.

Darklighters are especially easy to kill.

**Entrance to Hades domain.**

* * *

The battle was a mess. There were bodies everywhere, and nobody really seemed to care about them. Fire balls whizzed all over the place, and lightning seemed like a common occurrence. The demons were protecting the entrance to my, no, Hades' domain, while the Titans were trying to get in.

I went to help, and hoped that my plan would work.

* * *

I shimmered to the Manor, after having had a quick shower, new clothes, and had burnt my clothes.

The Halliwells and Cole were all collected in the attic.

Piper looked extremely pissed, as did Leo. Cole just smirked, and waved.

"Who gave you the permission to treat my son in such a way?"

"Well, if I'm going to be honest, no one. But one the bright side, he's back to normal, and the Titans are all gone with no chance of coming back. Think of all the innocents that you have saved."

Piper waved her hands, and I looked down to see a hole in my shirt. I could also see the old burn mark that I had gotten that time that I got attacked on the way home.

"You should give that power back from wherever you got it," Paige told me.

"I know."

"Aren't you going to help?" Piper asked Cole.

"I can handle myself, thank you very much." With that, I shimmered down into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and grabbed some pie.

And after that, I was going to contact creepy guy with books and tell him to shove Hades into Hel, whether she wanted it or not.

* * *

I was lying in my bed, unable to sleep. It could have something to do with the fact that I was having trouble breathing.

"Ben?" Cole asked quietly from outside the door. He then opened it, and stepped in, then sat down on my bed.

He looked at me. "What are you going to do now that the Titans are gone?"

"I... I am going to take over the Underworld."

"Why?" Cole asked. His voice suddenly harsh.

"I think that they need order down there."

"Ben-"

"I can be the Source if I want to, okay?"

"Well, as long as you don't tell the Halliwells. They'd kill me, for sure this time."

Cole then walked out of the room, but I knew that he was worried.

_**He took that with surprising ease...**_

There's nothing wrong with that.

_**And you intend to become the Source?**_

Shut up.

* * *

The battle was over, the Titans were gone for good. The Underworld were having a lot of trouble building everything up.

"Hello!" I yelled, and waved my arms in the air. The demons' heads turned to me at the exact same time.

"Source?" one of them asked, while another asked :"Hades?" I immediately waved my hand, and the guy who called 'Hades' went up in flames.


	26. The End

"Hey," I said, and sat down in front of their graves. "I'm sorry I didn't, you know. God, I suck at this.

Anyway, um, I hope you're good. I'm, I, I think I'm doing better. I, I miss you. A lot. I, I miss you Jeanie. I, it was... Matches." I laughed. "Of all the things, matches. They still exist, and I hate that, because... You're dead. And, and you shouldn't be, because you were just a kid. Innocent.

And Jamie, I longed, longed, for the time that, that you would stand up for yourself, and say no. God, I miss you. I could tell you to do anything, and you'd do it. You were like my own minion.

I miss you all, I miss the awful cooking, and... Candy. Cookie." I laughed. "I, miss the house, too. It, I, it was gorgeous. Beautiful, tiny, I hated my room so much. I miss it now. My, my, my new room, it's, too big. I don't have enough stuff.

And... The regular meals, and the whiskey.

And, when, when you, grandpa, tried to fix things. You always failed, but, you kept on trying. You always, always, tried. And you put up with grandma." I sniffed.

"I miss everything. Our whole family. And, the ridiculousness.

Everybody still blames me. But, without you, grandma, it's just not the same. Now they're just a bunch of bitches, low level, instead of you."

I wiped away the tear rolling down my cheek.

"But, I guess that my, new career choice didn't help matters. I think that I know what you would say.

And dad, you'd probably be proud, me finding a job this young. Jeanie would think that it's cool, but..."

Can't the fuckin' tears just stop running?

"Anyway, I..."

I wiped away the new tears.

"What a sight I must be, huh? What would they say, their leader like this? Well, they wouldn't respect me, that's for sure.

And, I think that I'm fine with your deaths. The guy responsible is dead, and, the gargoyles hate me. Talk about losing my marbles."

I stood up, and looked at the dates of death. A single tear hit the gravestone.

"You weren't meant to die. I'm going to make sure that this will not happen again. Jennifer, especially, shouldn't have died.

And therapy, we should've done that.

I'm leaving now. No use in me just standing around here. I'll give you flowers. Nice ones, you'll like 'em. Pinky promise."

**AN: And that's the end of this story. Hope you like, please review.**


	27. The Notice

**AN: The rewrite of this story and Family Reunion is now up and it's called The Tale of a Boy and His Dark Passenger. The plot is differend from this story, but the same characters will be there. Here's an outtake:**

_My arm hurt, or rather, the place where my arm had been hurt. My throat was sore._

"_You'll be fine, survived one amputation already."_

_All I could hear was suffering. I must be part of it, but I couldn't hear myself._

"_Hold here, where's the saw?"_

"_Here, doc. We need more."_

"_I know. Hold him."_

_My leg was very warm, and I could still fell the burn in my arm. _

_Oh god, I shouldn't. The arm should be gone. I turned my head to the side and there was nothing. Where's the burn coming from if not from my arm?_

_There was a scream, much louder than the general sound of pain. I realized it was me._


End file.
